We are officially launching 3G in France,” said a flamboyant Thierry Breton, chairman of Orange and CEO at parent company France Telecom. “The financials are not what’s at stake here; they are mine to manage and not my customers’ problem,” he continued, hinting that 3G licence costs would not be passed on in service pricing.
“Now is the right time [to launch 3G] because customers are more aware, networks are ready and terminals that we like are finally here,” he said.
OPERATOR YET TO SELECT TERMINALS
No terminals have yet been selected, but the front-runners are the LG U8150, the Motorola A835 – where Orange apparently has supply volume commitments – and Sony Vaio laptops. Lucent may provide UMTS cards. Infrastructure will continue to be provided by Alcatel, Nortel and Nokia in France, and Alcatel and Nokia in the U.K. in deals of undisclosed value and without vendor financing.