Proximus Starts on UMTS

BRUSSELS -- Almost two months earlier than foreseen, Proximus has started the technical launch of its UMTS network, the third generation of mobile telephony. This launch is an essential phase in the roll-out process for this new technology, and a prelude to the market launch planned for 2005 at the latest.

On 8 February 2002, the Minister for Telecommunications, Public Enterprises and Participations decided to postpone for a further year the roll-out of UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecom System - third-generation mobile telephony), as written into the licenses allocated by the Belgian State in March 2001. The technical opening of the network was scheduled to take place before 15 September 2003, with a 30% coverage of the population before January 2006.

Almost two months earlier than the official start date, Proximus is the first Belgian mobile operator to take up the technical challenge of third-generation mobile telephony, and thus renew its commitment to offering its customers a superior-quality mobile telephony network.

Almost ten years after the introduction of GSM in Belgium, Proximus is now testing future mobile telephony applications such as mobile video telephony, video streaming and video messaging, and continues to deploy its UMTS network. The commercial launch of first third-generation services is planned for 2005 at the latest.

Thanks to mobile video telephony, the user no longer needs to describe in detail what he is looking at; he can simply invite the person he is talking to, to have a look at it on his own mobile device's screen. Video streaming, on the other hand, allows the user to watch video clips in real time on his mobile's screen. Finally, video messaging can be regarded as a further evolution of MMS. It allows the user to compose a video message on his screen and to send or receive it. Actually, video messages are a bit like short films and it is the user who becomes the director of the messages he can then send to another mobile device.

By investing in UMTS technology, Proximus intends to offer its customers a comprehensive mobile solution for access to the information they need, regardless of the type of technology they use, i.e., GSM, GPRS, UMTS or Wireless LAN. On top of that, Proximus continues to invest in its GSM/GPRS network -more than 65 million euro in 2003- to continuously assure the offering of a mobile telephony network of superior quality.

In the first six months of 2003, Proximus has also continued developing its range of services, with, amongst other things, the introduction of the Geo Services. This service allows the user to retrieve information based on the location where he is at, at that moment. Furthermore, Proximus signed an interconnection agreement with one of its competitors to allow for the sending of MMS's from one network to the other. MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), which was introduced last year November, has already attracted more than 100,000 users.

On 30 June 2003, Proximus had 4,159,000 active* customers, i.e., 89,000 more active customers than at the end of 2002. There were 4,310,000 SIM cards on the network (1,778,000 subscribers and 2,532,000 Pay&Go), compared to 4,253,000 at the end of 2002 (+57,000 cards). During the first quarter of 2003, the percentage of active customers rose slightly, from 96% to 96.5%.

Proximus