The adoption of third generation services is expected to rapidly increase during 2006, as operators continue to rollout their third generation networks alongside compelling new services, says Orange. The Company announced that it had struck new deals with a number of European operators, enabling its customers to use their 3G phones in 18 countries across the world more than any other UK operator can offer.
Keith Greenfield, Director of Roaming and Interconnect, stated that 2006 is going to be a big year for 3G both at home and abroad. Third generation technology is fast becoming a win win story for the consumer. Network coverage is expanding while the cost of usage is falling. Consequently, adoption of 3G services will increase. We saw this happen with second generation voice and text in the late 90s. Now it’s 3Gs turn.
According to an independent survey carried out by Aircom, Orange already delivers the UKs largest integrated 3G network (to over 70% of the country) as well as a better quality of service than any other.
To compliment its national coverage, Orange now offers 3G roaming in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Orange already has the largest GPRS roaming coverage and the best seamless Prepay roaming coverage of any UK operator.
In the last quarter of 2005, 22 per cent of customers signing up to Orange opted for a 3G phone and tariff. On average, those customers then used more than five times the amount of data than they did on their 2G phone. The demand for 3G services is growing and were expecting further acceleration this year, Greenfield added.
Orange currently has over 300,000 3G customers in the UK and is expecting that figure to rise to 1.5 million by the end of this year.
2006-01-23
Em Foco – Produto