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Other 3G News
Qualcomm and Teleepoch
Enter Into a 3G CDMA Subscriber Unit License Agreement, October
6, 2007
MTN chooses Cambridge Broadband
Networks for multi-service wireless network in Rwanda, October 6,
2007
Brazilian government to
publish 3G bidding rules soon, October 6, 2007
KTF 3G service suffers
from technical problems, October 6, 2007
Argentina’s Personal
lunches 3G service in Rosario, October 6, 2007
Russia has it's first 3G
network, October 6, 2007
AT&T could drop Alcatel-Lucent
as 3G mobile network supplier, October 6, 2007
Enea Extends License Agreement
with ZTE for 3G Handsets, October 2, 2007
LG to unveil premium handsets
in Brazil, October 2, 2007
KTF 3G subscribers doubled
in less than 3 months, October 2, 2007
3G policy in India will
be non-uniform, October 2, 2007
- previous news
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EEMA critical of UK Government over 3G licence auction
date: April 30, 2001 - source: 
eema.org
EEMA has expressed criticism and concern about the way in which the UK
Government handled the auction of the 3G licenses in the Spring of 2000.
In EEMA’s opinion, the UK Government failed to achieve its objective ‘…
to secure for the long-term benefit of UK customers and the national economy
. . . sustained provision of third-generation services in the UK' and
today submitted its comments concerning the consequences of the auction
to the National Audit Office.
Stuart McRae, who sits on the EEMA board of directors and is chair of
the association’s unified messaging interest group said “in our opinion,
the UK auction process used to select the 3G licensees was not structured
to provide the country with the best possible infrastructure for next
generation wireless services, but instead to provide maximum revenue for
the UK Government. Although this short-term approach benefited the country
financially (resulting in a revenue of £22.5 billion, far exceeding the
Government’s expectations of £1.5 billion) the prohibitively high license
costs paid by the five licensees could be considered to be the ‘last straw’
in relation to the Telecommunications industry and were a catalyst in
the lack of confidence in world markets in the sector.”
EEMA, the leading European not-for-profit e-Business association with
the aim to further e-Business throughout Europe, felt that not only were
the set-up costs prohibitively high, but that the cost of provision and
support of five separate networks (possibly more than five times the cost
of providing one) would further stretch the resources of the licensees,
resulting in the cost being passed down to business and the consumer in
the guise of higher charges. “The added cost of supporting the networks
is a major concern” added Rick Chandler, also an EEMA board member and
chair of EEMA’s wireless work group. “This is true not only in the UK
but also in other European countries, in particular in France and Germany,
where the respective Governments entered into the auction process, and
revenues of £12 billion and £32 billion were achieved. The revenues in
all three countries were seriously out of balance with the rest of Europe.
Again, EEMA sees this as unfair to the licensees and users alike” he concluded.
Also of concern were the potential interoperability issues that could
evolve as a result of having five UK license holders, all of which will
be engineered differently with different market aims, with each providing
less coverage than the aggregated whole. EEMA believes that the best possible
3G technologies should be deployed for use by UK businesses and citizens
in a way which is interoperable across Europe and feels that this goal
was sacrificed in return for short-term financial gain by the UK government.
“We look forward to the result of the National Audit Office investigation
into this matter” concluded McRae.
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