T-Mobile hopeful of 3G launch in UK by summer

March 11, 2004

T-Mobile said Wednesday that it expects to launch next generation mobile services in the UK by this summer.

T-Mobile UK Managing Director Brian McBride said the company's metropolitan 3G network is ready to go live but will only do so if customer experience is satisfactory and a wider range of 3G handsets becomes available.

"I think by summer, we will have an offering," he said.

T-Mobile will officially announce its 3G handset range and rollout strategy at the CeBIT conference in Hanover in mid-March.

The company expects its 3G data card to be commercially available within the next two months in the UK which could be retailing for £100 after subsidy.

While 3UK, the only operator to commercially launch 3G service in the UK, has prided its service on video calling, McBride believes the selling point of 3G is in the faster access to business applications. He said not all 3G handsets needs to support video calling and that the quality of sound clips such as MP3 is more important.