Nokia Siemens Networks, the indisputable #1 in EDGE with 125 public EDGE references,  today launched their downlink Dual Carrier EDGE software solution, ushering the first steps of EDGE Evolution into Nokia Siemens Networks' GSM/EDGE radio portfolio. This solution offers double data speeds of up to 592 Kbps to existing EDGE-capable GSM networks, thus enabling a mobile broadband experience, such as maintaining relationships in virtual societies, posting video clips to blogs in real time or streaming the latest news in mobile TV.

Nokia Siemens Networks' Dual Carrier EDGE solution, which will be available as a software upgrade from Q3 2008 onwards is the first step in evolving EDGE. As a strong innovator of EDGE Evolution, Nokia Siemens Networks already has additional plans to introduce in its networks the next substantial step, the so called EGPRS 2, to further boost end user experience in up- and downlink performance. This will result in downlink speeds of up to 1.2 Mbps and will double uplink speed to up to 473 Kbps, thus quadrupling the capabilities of EDGE today. EDGE Evolution is based on the 3GPP release 7 standard.

"By 2015, we expect to live in a broadband-IP world with five billion people 'always on' and therefore Nokia Siemens Networks is committed to protecting customer investments and continue to implement leading EDGE technology. Dual Carrier software upgrade is an easy and extremely cost efficient step to bring broadband user experience to GSM/EDGE networks", says Ari Lehtoranta, Head of Radio Access Business Unit, Nokia Siemens Networks.

Operators can serve their customers even better using the Dual Carrier solution as the demand for data services and connectivity is immense, proven by the steep increase on data services consumption in 3G/HSPA networks today. With this solution, 3G/HSPA operators can offer service continuity for their 3G services.

Nokia Siemens Networks GSM/EDGE BSS is operational in 260 operator networks in 117 countries offering services to more than 1.5B subscribers.

So far so good but now it comes to the question which handsets will support NSN's Dual Carrier EDGE solution? Most likely a couple of Nokia handsets but that's it, or?