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1. Sweden acts: 3G network building starts
2. Orange not afraid of looming recession
3. Canadian mobile cooperation
4. French goverment lowers 3G license prices
5. German goverment refuses to ease the burden of 3G operators
6. Sony-Ericsson postpones launch of 3G phones
7. GPRS launch in China
1. Sweden acts: 3G network building starts
If Sweden keeps up its efforts, it could become the first European nation to
introduce 3G in Europe. A Swedish construction company has started to build
a 3G enviromenment, namely antennas and the very basic telecommunications
infrastructure. As of right now, there have several purchases of real estate
for antennas as well as the creation of first detailed plans on which areas
are to be connected first to the coming 3G technology. The 2 operators
behind this are Hi3G and Europolitan Vodafone.
2. Orange not afraid of looming recession
The French mobile operator Orange has announced that it will not back down
its investments in 3G. The company has announced to invest as much as £5
billion in its UK 3G network. Other competitors in the European market have
actually seriously cut down on their investments and some are even trying to
get financial aid from banks. Although a coming recession seems inevitable,
Orange is keeping up its plans to be one of the first 3G operators in
Europe.
3. Canadian mobile cooperation
Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility, 2 of the largest mobile operators in
Canada have release a statement in which they confirm their strategic
partnership. With this cooperation, they are following the example of
several other operators around the world, which have teamed up with some
other company to ensure that they will have enough financial power for the
steps to 3G. The pact will be for a period of 10 years. Once the entire
cooperation is running the companies will have a coverage of over 90% in
Canada.
4. French goverment lowers 3G license prices
The French goverment has lowered the prices for the 3G licenses to 619
million Euros. The original license costs were almost 5 billion Euros. This
move was made because the French goverment was uncertain whether the
operators would not experience a financial collapse due to the extremely
high license fees. The operators, including France Telecom, Bouygues and
Vivendi Universal, which had aquired a license obviously were content about
the decision of the governement. The goverment also is seeking other
operators which want to aquire two more licences.
5. German goverment refuses to ease the burden of 3G operators
In contrast to the French goverment, the German goverment has officially
stated that they will not lower any of the 3G fees and prices for the
telecommunications companies. The "Regulierungsbehörde für Post und
Telekommunikation" also called RegTP thinks that the operators can very well
afford the costs for the 3G-licences, despite the economical turmoil in
which the World is in. However the RegTP is considering some basic changes
in the payment arrangements, in order to make it easier for the mobile
operators to make profits in the first few years of the 3G era.
6. Sony-Ericsson postpones launch of 3G phones
The new telecommunicatons giant conglomerate Sony-Ericsson will postpone
their launches of any 3G mobile phones to a unspecified date. According to
Sony-Ericsson, the concentrated efforts of the near future will lie on GPRS
and other 2.5G technologies. Until now the new company has prepared first
plans for 3G phones which should have been released in the near future,
maybe even next year. Now, because of the several delays in the building of
3G networks all over the world, the company does not want to put phones on
the market, which only a very few people could use.
7. GPRS launch in China
China Mobile stated that it will launch its GRPS services within the next 3
months. The cooperation with Nokia, which has built most of the
infrastructure for China Mobile, has been very successful and the network is
ready to go. In the first few months, the coverage of the network will
include approximately 2 million subscribers, but this number will go up very
quickly if the Chinese customers like the GPRS services. Many experts
believe that the Chinese market is still somewhat of an untapped goldmine
for the telecommunications market because of the large population and a
goverment which pushes almost all technologies on its soil.
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