IS-95 outlawed in Europe!! EU Unveils High-tech Mobile Phone Strategy
If you outlaw IS-95, only oulaws will have it..........
Wednesday February 11 3:04 PM EST
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission unveiled a strategy on Wednesday for ensuring Europe maintains its lead in developing technology for the next generation of mobile phones.
The European Union executive proposed legislation to pave the way for consumers to use high-speed mobile phones or terminals to connect to the Internet or multimedia services such as video-conferencing by 2002.
It asks the 15 EU countries to co-ordinate their approach to licensing, technical standards and frequencies so that Europe can repeat its success in developing the global GSM standard for digital cellular phones.
"The proposed (legislation) responds to calls from the mobile sector for greater legal certainty given the scale of investments (the new technology) requires," the Commission said.
Europe's market for cellular mobile services is expected to exceed $100 billion by 2005, with 22 million customers, the Commission said. The number of customers is expected to grow to 300 million by 2015, it added.
The new technology, Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), took a step forward earlier this month when the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) agreed on the basic standard.
The standard for an "air interface," or link between the terminal and network, combines elements of two competing proposals -- one backed by telecoms equipment manufacturers Nokia of Finland and Ericsson of Sweden and the other by German electronics company Siemens.
The Commission is hoping UMTS will beat off competition from a U.S.-backed technology to become the global standard.
Its proposal, which must be approved by EU ministers and the European Parliament before it becomes law, says EU countries should implement a harmonized licensing system for UMTS services by January 1, 2000.
It said governments should insist that the new networks support "roaming" -- the ability for consumers to use their UMTS terminals across Europe as they do now with GSM phones.
The EU should also ask the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) to draw up a European strategy for allocating frequencies for UMTS networks, it said.
UMTS terminals will be designed to work on either terrestrial or satellite networks and to communicate with GSM phones. |
