Tuesday, March 16, 2010:
It seems that Europe is on the cusp of a major mobile revolution. The continent will soon see a new generation of faster mobile networks that will lower operator costs and could lead to a major pricing war between European cell phone companies. European operators are gearing up to install the networks, which function using a technology called Long Term Evolution, or LTE.
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The system will increase mobile speeds but has a major drawback: it will makes mobile calling in Europe expensive, and would benefit large operators who have a big customer base. “Mobile voice calls and short text messages are some of the most expensive forms of data in the world,” said J Scott Marcus, analyst, WIK-Consult, Germany. “There is a debate in the industry over whether operators can justify the prices with LTE.”
Industry experts believe that the plan could lead to Europe following the US method of flat-rate calling plans to all networks. Last month the world’s largest operators signed an agreement to develop a new technical standard for sending voice calls between rival LTE networks, but which would uphold Europe’s so-called regulated termination rates. But LTE will have the advantage of slashing the overall cost of transmitting voice calls, says The New York Times.
Ashish Joshi, EFYTIMES News Network
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