Orange mulls use of 3G alternative

date: 13th December 2000, source: FTMarketWatch.com

Orange, the France Telecom- owned mobile phone operator, is considering using software that could enable high-speed mobile Internet services without the need for third-generation (3G) cell-phone licences and the related new technology.

Orange's comments follow revelations in The Times newspaper this week that Finnish company Jippii Group has developed software that's capable of allowing mobile phone users to access the Web in big cities at high-speeds without the need for 3G technology.

"Orange is aware of the software (and) although we don't see it as a competitor to 3G, we have looked into it and we have discussed the possibility of a link up between the two," an Orange spokesman told FTMarketWatch.com.

Mobile Net

Jippii has already used the software to launch a mobile Net service named Freedom in Helsinki and plans to launch similar services in London and Frankfurt next year.

Jippii's U.K. and German launches would come before companies such as Orange, Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom are ready to launch their 3G services. European telecoms operators have paid a total of €134 billion for 3G licences this year but aren't due to launch their networks until 2002.

The Finnish group would need to build hundreds of base stations on top of buildings to launch its services, but Jippii told The Times that the equipment it uses is between five and 10 times cheaper than equipment needed to build 3G networks

The software was developed by a professor at the Helsinki University of Technology named Hannu Kari, has been dubbed Dynamics HUT Mobile IP.

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