Perry La Forge must have spoken w/ this guy.
Group 3G is considering the deployment of GPRS in the 3G band.
I just don't get it...is CDMA2000 a profanity in Europe?
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INTERVIEW-CeBIT-Group 3G eyes German GPRS cellphone entry
By Kirstin Ridley and Hendrik Sackmann
HANOVER, Germany, March 23 (Reuters) - Group 3G, the German cellphone start-up owned by
Spanish carrier Telefonica (TEF.MAD) and Finland's Sonera (SRA1V.HEL), said on Friday it
might make its market debut by piggy-backing over upgraded rival networks.
Brushing aside analyst estimates that a high speed, new- generation cellphone network in
Europe's biggest telecoms market could cost up to eight billion euros ($7 billion), Group 3G is
eyeing transitional deals to bring its brand to market quickly.
"We are not ruling out coming to market with GPRS," Chief Executive Ernst Folgmann, who only
took the top job last month at the smallest of Germany's six mobile phone rivals, told Reuters at the
CeBIT technology trade fair in Hanover.
Companies hope new technologies such as General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) will help
unlock potentially lucrative mobile Internet services -- and provide a litmus test for even faster,
third-generation UMTS mobile services planned for 2002/3.
Analysts and fund managers believe Group 3G, which has already spent 8.4 billion euros on a
German UMTS licence, will struggle to build a profitable business without linking up with rivals --
especially as debt-strapped parent Sonera has called for more German partners to help share
costs.
Sonera, whose stock has plunged more than 80 percent over the last year, is battling the same
investor scepticism over the huge financial commitments to third-generation mobile networks that
is plaguing its European telecoms rivals.
Compounding investor concerns, Japanese mobile customers -- who lead the world in mobile
Internet use -- are far from satisfied with the service. Market research group Japan Gartner Group
said on Friday half of those in their 20s and 30s were unhappy with the content and ease of use
offered by their phone.
KPN TALKS?
Folgmann, whose company pulled a news conference at CeBIT because there was "no news",
declined to comment on speculation that Telefonica and Dutch rival KPN Telecom (KPN.AMS) --
whose merger attempt was aborted last year -- were already in talks.
But partly because of the cost of German mobile expansion -- given the country's sheer
geographic size and the spectacular 50.8 billion euros paid for six UMTS licences last year -- the
talk at CeBIT this year centres on cooperation to cut costs.
Viag Interkom, the number four player owned by embattled British Telecommunications Plc
(BT^A.LON), has already said it would open up its network to its rivals -- at the right price and if
they had a "sufficiently large" customer base of their own.
Folgmann said he was not restricted by German regulators from bringing to market so-called 2.5
generation GPRS services, which are billed to offer faster, "always on" mobile Internet services,
despite only owning a third-generation licence.
New GPRS phones, which top equipment suppliers such as Nokia (NOK1V.HEL), Ericsson
(LME-B.STO) and Motorola (MOT) are unveiling, allow customers to use mobiles to browse the
Web, check news, send e-mail and place orders for anything from pizzas to flight tickets.
Group 3G, which now has 200 staff -- including 40 from Spain and 30 from Finland -- is moving
headquarters to Munich from Frankfurt and says it is in talks with telecoms equipment vendors and
planning a range of hi-tech mobile products and services for its market entry.
Asked whether it can guarantee that it can keep to UMTS licence conditions, which demand that
cellphone operators roll out their new networks to cover 25 percent of the population by 2003 and
50 percent by 2005, Folgmann said only:
"We can handle that...We are a new entrant -- but every newcomer has advantages as well as
disadvantages..."
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