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Technology Stocks : Nokia (NOK) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 49thMIMOMander who wrote (18859)	3/13/2002 10:16:57 AM
From: Eric L	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

<< For those who didn't listen, Savander started out by pointing out what OMA is and isn't, not another DOS, Windos, trojan horse,etc, etc, as "some in the audience" has been writing recently. >> He did focus then focus on Nokia's role in OMA and the Series 60 platform. He indicated that Nokia had not yet decided to open up the Series 40 platform as they have Series 60. He pointed out that fragmentation is a costly business because it pushes the cost of IOT way up and that in the initiative interoperability was key and that the initiative is driving at non-fragmentation and open systems. He also pointed oout that OMA would be expanding to be radio protocol agnostic. He covered 4 enabling technologies at pretty high level: * Symbian OS * Multimedia Messaging Services * XHTML * Java What did you think of the presentation? I thought it was excellent. - Eric -

To: 49thMIMOMander who wrote (18859)	3/13/2002 11:11:32 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 34857

German telcos dampen hopes of 3G mass market By Kirstin Ridley and Boris Groendahl, Reuters 13 March 2002 The German subsidiaries of cellphone rivals Vodafone Group Plc and mmO2 said on Tuesday they did not expect a mass market for high-speed, new-generation services before 2004. Speaking on the fringes of a press conference, the head of Vodafone Germany told Reuters that although the group planned to pilot third-generation (3G) mobiles this autumn, it could take another three years before the service really takes off. "I do not expect a mass market before 2004 or 2005," said Juergen von Kuczkowski, who heads the central European arm of the world's top mobile phone operator. "There will be no Big Bang. (2G) GSM services will long remain our core business." His mood was echoed by Rudolf Groeger, the chief executive of British-based mmO2's German subsidiary Viag Interkom -- the number four in Germany with a seven percent market share. "I don't expect to see the 50 to 60 million people, who are currently using (standard) GSM services, to use 3G for another four to five years," Groeger told Reuters in an interview. Equipment suppliers are struggling to appease market concerns that technology glitches will further delay operators' attempts to recoup some of the 100 billion euro ($87 billion) 3G investments by promptly bringing to market new handsets. But von Kuczkowski, whose company controls around 40 percent of the German market, said he expected initial demand for 3G handsets -- which are billed to offer multimedia, picture and high-speed data services -- to be satisfied in 2003. Telecoms operators have previously talked about "volume" or "meaningful" 3G launches in mid 2003. But in what is becoming an exercise in semantic acrobatics, Groeger defined a mass market as one with more than half a million customers. "We won't reach this stage before 2004," he said. Around 70 percent of Germans, or some 56 million people, already use mobile phones. 3G delay to hit new entrants The six operators in Germany, Europe's biggest telecoms market, are only required by current licence requirements to build a network covering 25 percent of the population by the end of 2003 -- and address 50 percent by end-2005. But analysts worry that operators, which are expected to pay around 80 billion euros for new networks on top of the licence prices, are pushing back 3G launches as groups struggle with the costs of developing technologies and bringing them to market. Analysts say any delays in 3G spending spells particularly bad news for new entrants, which are facing the prospect of ever more distant 3G revenues to help pay down high debts while they battle to build market share. While Finland's Nokia, the world's top handset maker, tried to whet an appetite for 3G phones by whipping one out ahead of an official launch in September, von Kuczkowski said only it was too soon to speculate about handset supplies. Vodafone Germany, which plans flat capital expenditure in Germany of around 1.0 billion euros this year, said it expected only "a few thousand" 3G cellphones to be available this autumn. But the group said it was sure enough handsets would be available in 2003 to meet customer demand. Partly for this reason, von Kuczkowski said Vodafone believed it had enough 3G network capacity, or spectrum, in Germany until beyond 2004. "We do not expect to have problems with our current spectrum levels in the foreseeable future," he said. "We will not be eyeing up the spectrum of some of our rivals." Warning German regulators against bowing to industry demands by allowing any merging competitors to keep all their spectrum, von Kuczkowski demanded there be no relaxation in licence rules that might benefit some of its weaker competitors. Under current German licence rules, merging companies have to hand back one licence, which comes with 20 megahertz of spectrum. As each licence cost around 8.4 billion euros, this is seen as a costly barrier to consolidation in Europe's most competitive telecoms market.