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To: Eric L who wrote (19458)	4/10/2002 9:51:45 AM
From: Eric L	Respond to of 34857

re: GPRS Roman RoamFest Next Week During the recent CEO Roundtable held by the GSMA during the 3GSM World Congress, the CEO’s attending agreed to focus their efforts on GPRS roaming and to get roaming agreements signed asap. While this is very welcomed news to a customer like me, it didn’t go far enough. So I came up with the hair brain idea of getting operators together at the upcoming GSM Plenary meeting in Rome and holding a “RoamFest”…you know like those geeky Internet things where folks with electronic gadgets get together, lock themselves in a room and don’t come out until something is done. Exactly what is done is not known, at least not known by me. So I took their great idea and modified it slightly calling it RoamFest with Mark Smith adding the tag line “Roam in Rome” and we proclaim it where operators send their representatives to bilaterally negotiate and execute GPRS roaming agreements. RoamFest will be held during the three day GSMA Plenary 47 meeting in Rome, Italy on the 16th to 18th of April. - John Hoffman, "Wireless Evolution Insider", March 2002 >> GPRS Roaming Tops Agenda At Rome Summit John Leyden The Register 04/09/2002 Extending the availability of GPRS (General Packet Radio Services) roaming services has become a key focus for a GSM Association meeting in Rome next week. It's hoped the 47th Plenary Meeting of members of the GSM Association, which will take place between April 16-18, will provide the ideal forum for the negotiation of roaming agreements between operators. A set of meeting rooms have been booked at the conference to facilitate this Roamfest (bad pun courtesy GSM Association). As operators roll out GPRS networks around the world, the GSM Association is keen to promote the deployment of robust, interoperable wireless data services toward the level of international ubiquity that exists for today's GSM services. The current lack of such agreements diminishes the value of GPRS services, particularly for business users. In addition, roaming has been plagued by technical issues. Sophie York, an analyst at telecoms consultancy Ovum, said GPRS roaming agreements are few and far between, with numerous gaps in the coverage available. Asia is more advanced in rolling out the technology, but in Europe only Vodafone, (which began the roll out of the facility last month through its European subsidiaries) Telia and Sonera are among the few operators who have made the facility available. The US is even further behind Europe in GPRS roaming. There are both technical and commercial reasons for the lack of GPRS roaming. Although the technology to equip networks to allow GPRS roaming is available, it is still in its infancy and somewhat complex, resulting in many teething troubles for early adopters. Signing agreements is also taking time, and billing for roaming services (between operators and to customers) remains a thorny issue. ® << >> Show Me a (European) Home Where the GPRS Roams Drew Cullen TheRegister Posted: 25/03/2002 Vodafone has introduced GPRS roaming across Europe - a first from a mobile operator, it says. The service works in 12 countries. Here's the list: * Belgium * France * Germany * Greece * Ireland * Italy * Netherlands * Portugal * Spain * Sweden * Switzerland * UK At present, GPRS roaming in Germany is limited to a few cities, with full nationwide coverage coming on stream at the end of April. As for the rest of Europe, Vodafone is rolling out the service to affiliates with aim for complete coverage by the end of the year. GPRS is sometimes referred to as 2.5G and can be regarded as a fastish-but intermediate mobile Internet technology, while the network operators get their 3G act together. You pay by according to the amount of data you send and receive, not for the amount of time you spend on the phone. ® << - Eric -

To: Eric L who wrote (19458)	4/10/2002 10:03:52 AM
From: Dexter Lives On	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

Anticipating a decision from the UK Radio Agency to allow commercial services to operate across the 2.4 GHz radio spectrum, BT is moving to build the UK's first public access Wireless LAN network by installing around 400 hotspots by June 2003. BT estimates there will be up to 4,000 sites by June 2005 and will be working closely with its partners Motorola and Cisco to build the new network. One of the last regulatory holdouts - great news! Rob