Finland. Sonera began offering High Speed Circuit Switched Data services to its data customers 6 September, but without available handsets. Sonera said it wanted to be ready when handsets are available later this year.
France. At Telecom ’99 in Geneva, Alcatel, French carrier SFR/Cegetel, Phone.com and Sagem demonstrated traffic, mapping, location-based and distributed guidance services for WAP phones using technology from French start-up company Webraska Mobile Technologies.
Hungary. Motorola announced that GSM operator Westel 900 will trial its technology to offer subscribers wireless data access. The trial is Hungary’s first deployment of WAP technology and uses Motorola’s Mobile Internet Exchange platform.
Germany. Mannesmann Mobilfunk selected Siemens and Phone.com to supply a commercial WAP platform.
Ireland. Esat Digifone announced the first service in Ireland that allows customers to access Internet information via mobile phones. The service, called dot digifone-on-line, is based on WAP technology. Users can access news, airline information, stock prices and other information with the service.
South Korea. LG Telecom is offering CDMA wireless Internet services to its wireless phone customers using Phone.com’s UP.Link Server Suite, according to Phone.com. LG has branded the services as Computerless Internet 019.
Switzerland. Swisscom plans to begin offering commercial WAP services at the beginning of the year, but said the exact timing will be dependent on availability of WAP-compatible phones.
Nokia said it will deliver its GPRS core network solution to wireless operator Diax, who is scheduled to launch commercial GPRS service next year.
United Kingdom. Phone.com and BT Cellnet announced BT Cellnet has licensed the Phone.com UP.Link Server Suite to offer WAP-based services.
Orange announced a strategic partnership with the Sun-Netscape Alliance, a provider of e-commerce and infrastructure software solutions, to deliver its Internet strategy.
Nortel Networks announced One 2 One will deploy a wireless Internet trial in selected areas of London using a GPRS solution from Nortel. One 2 One plans to offer GPRS commercially beginning sometime next year.
British Telecom and Microsoft announced a wireless Internet trial with about 1,000 mobile phone users in the United Kingdom and Norway. Sagem and Samsung have developed Web-browser mobile phone equipment for use in the trial.
United States. BellSouth Cellular announced it will begin a WAP trial with customers in some of its GSM markets through a partnership with Saraide and InfoSpace.com. Several hundred BellSouth customers will use WAP-enabled handsets from Motorola and Nokia to access a variety of services via a local BellSouth Buzz Internet portal.
Infoseek Corp. announced an agreement with Ericsson to trial wireless Internet services on Infoseek’s GO Network. The partnership will focus on identifying WAP services that have broad market consumer appeal. Trials will include personal information management, content and e-commerce and will be conducted in the United States in second-quarter 2000.
