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To: Eric L who wrote (17872)	1/17/2002 12:04:26 PM
From: Caxton Rhodes	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 34857

No full 3G in Europe before 2004, Swisscom argues By Marcel Michelson, Reuters *********Eric isn't ths what Dr. J said? Caxton 16 January 2002 Switzerland's dominant telecoms operator Swisscom AG said on Wednesday it did not expect any meaningful third-generation (3G) mobile services in Europe until 2004 while the handset technology catches up. Although 3G networks would be in place well before then, users are unlikely to buy large numbers of handsets until offered a phone that can handle the existing technology, new high-speed 3G and the intermediate GPRS standard, said Swisscom Mobile AG Chief Executive Carsten Schloter. "At the moment people are saying we can expect these handsets to be there in the third quarter of 2003. I'd say it will be 2004 at the earliest," Schloter said at an event to launch a country-wide General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) service. This means that telecommunications operators who splashed out billions of dollars on 3G licences in Germany, Italy or Britain in 2000 will have to wait longer for a payback. Swisscom paid 50 million Swiss francs (US$30.0 million) for one of Switzerland's four licences for 3G, also known as the Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service (UMTS). Schloter said the firm was building 250 antennas to offer the coverage set in the licence conditions, but expected it would take another 16 to 18 months before these antennas were used in any meaningful way. He said data traffic currently made up 10 percent of the sales of the mobile communications unit, in which Vodafone Group Plc has a 25 percent stake. Of this data slice, 90 percent is made up of short text messages. BOOSTING DATA REVENUES Swisscom is making the GPRS technology available for free to all its existing mobile contract customers from February 1. Schloter estimated GPRS would help boost data revenues to 25 percent of its total revenues by the end of 2004. GPRS allows data transmission at up to 40 kilobits per second, or four to five times more than the current standard. Billing is based on the actual amount of data sent over the network, allowing mobile equipment to be constantly online. The use of GPRS will cost 0.19 francs per month per 10 kilobytes of traffic, For users of more than one megabyte per month, the price is 0.10 francs per 10 kilobytes. The third generation standard is being designed to transmit 64-384 kilobits per second, depending on the distance to the antenna. Schloter did not expect a revolutionary explosion in services for 3G beyond the messaging and data exchange services that are currently already being developed for GPRS. He expected the two systems to co-exist for more than seven years, during which customers will want to have handsets that can seamlessly handle all three transmission standards. The expensive 3G licences are still useful, Schloter said, because the new networks would alleviate capacity shortages in mobile infrastructure from the rapid rise in phone use. In Switzerland, France Telecom SA unit Orange and TDC Switzerland are installing their 3G networks. Spain's Telefonica, holder of the fourth Swiss licence, has so far not installed a single antenna towards meeting the requirement of covering 20 percent of the population by the end of this year.