Press release

Lancaster, 6^th June 2002 — According to recent research by the Teleconomy Group, a correlation exists between countries that have favoured a beauty contest rather than an auction based award of licenses, in terms of state of preparedness and a realistic schedule for the launch of 3G services.

Teleconomy believes that in countries such as Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark, the estimated start date to deploy 3G networks appears more realistic compared to Germany, the UK and Italy.

The cost of license per head of population highlights this relationship with US$ 0.006 in Sweden compared to US$657 in Germany and US$576 in the UK.

Teleconomy’s Net Figures services has revised its 3G subscription forecasts to take into account international developments over the last eighteen months and also network carrier plans to postpone dates for 3G deployment.

"The latest figures represent only a modest penetration across the globe" commented Dr Qmars Safikhani, managing consultant at Teleconomy. " We believe that western European countries will overtake Asia Pacific in the near term for deployment of 3G because of a more harmonised network technology as well as network share plans".

Teleconomy has forecast just under 5 million subscribers in western Europe by the end of 2004 and sees close to 30 million subscribers in the region by 2007.

Sweden and Finland will lead the 3G launch in Europe and see a much faster implementation and adoption than elsewhere. Teleconomy also suggests that Germany could beat the UK because of regulatory approval of shared networks and also the favourable response given to the launch of I-Mode services by KPN in the country.

"Our data suggests that European 3G deployment will unfold gradually and other forecasts suggesting more than twice our projections are somewhat unreal," added Dr Safikhani.

Net Figures is the leading index for the digital economy. For further information please contact enquiry@teleconomy.com

Editors

For further information please contact enquiry@teleconomy.com

Teleconomy Group Plc
Research House
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Teleconomy seek to understand and comment on organisational and consumer behaviours. Central to our approach is the understanding of evolving behaviours to inform future-oriented forecasting. Teleconomy employ a multi-disciplinary approach to our research, interpretations and consultancy. This approach combines insights and theory from academic fields including sociology, anthropology, psychology, management science, business research, literary theory and philosophy with empirical data collection/studies and practical understandings of the commercial issues and challenges facing organisations.

For a bar chart of cost of license per head of adult population please contact enquiry@teleconomy.com