EU makes a call for tomorrow’s mobile phones

Date: 02/10/1997

By Peter Chapman

THE European Commission will call on EU member states to kick-start the next generation of mobile telephony in a policy paper due out next week.

It will urge member states to put frameworks in place for handing out licences to operators in time for an expected roll-out of the EU standard universal mobile telecommunications service (UMTS) by 2002.

The Commission wants to get the licensing regime up and running well before the turn of the century to keep pace with technological developments and allow competition to take hold quickly in the UMTS market.

Officials warn that foot-dragging by member states could hinder the take-off of services and deny customers access to the latest mobile technology.

The EU telecoms industry is close to deciding on the final shape of the UMTS technology, which is expected to take over from today's successful GSM digital telephone standard. GSM has won converts across the world and has proven to be an export success for top EU telecom firms such as Sweden's Ericcson and Finland's Nokia.

Norms are being developed by the industry-led UMTS Forum and the EU's Nice-based European Telecommunications Standards Institute. Research, and development cash has also been pumped into the technology via the Union's multi-million-ecu ACTS advanced telecoms R&D programme.

The UMTS standard will build on GSM by linking with fixed telecom networks to provide users with the same level of service as they enjoy from today's best fixed systems.

Like GSM, UMTS is expected to evolve further once initial services are launched. This means callers will be able to use the same telephone numbers for mobile and fixed services and have on-the-road access to the Internet and other multimedia networks.

Commission officials say that since UMTS will share much of the basic GSM technology, many prospective services providers are expected to come from the ranks of today's GSM operators.

The Commission's report on UMTS is due to be adopted by the full College next Wednesday (8 October) and is expected to win EU telecom ministers' approval when they next meet in December.

The Commission is, however, on collision course with the UK over a separate plan to reform the telephone number system across the EU.

A draft numbering directive launched this week calls on member states to ensure customers are able to chose in advance which telecom operator they want to use for making long-distance calls, without having to dial lots of extra numbers each time. The Commission wants to phase in this 'carrier pre-selection' rule by 1 January 2000.

The UK says the move, aimed only at operators 'with significant market power', will discourage competition by ending the incentive for alternative telecom operators to build their own local networks to compete with the monopolists.

Commission officials reject this argument insisting that alternative operators such as cable TV networks do not need extra incentives to invest and are already planning new ways - such as fast Internet access -to attract customers to their own services.