OXFORD, United Kingdom-In an effort to calm the nerves of the third-generation (3G) community, Canning Fok, Hutchison’s managing director, said reports of call handover problems between current-generation and 3G networks would not result in an excessive number of connections being dropped.
Hutchison claimed that 3G trials in London indicated no major technical problems, with the number of unplanned disconnections being similar to the numbers of other operators. “There will be dropped calls, but we don’t think this will be a problem since every network has dropped calls. The main difficulties will be during the handover from our 3G network onto the roaming partner’s 2G network,” said Fok.
The company has signed a United Kingdom-wide current-generation roaming agreement to provide coverage while it builds its 3G network infrastructure
Despite widespread skepticism, Hutchison remains adamant that it will launch trial services for customers in the United Kingdom and Italy in October and hopes to recruit up to 10,000 customers in each country by the end of this year. Many industry analysts believe the company has committed nearly US$17 billion to deploying 3G networks around the world.
Separately, while news has leaked that all Hutchison’s 3G services will be branded “3,” the company has refused to reveal any details of the new logo or any information about products and services, insisting that this information will come later in the year. A spokesman also used the occasion to deny rumors that it has sacked 52 sales staff during the last four months, claiming that less than 15 people had been made redundant this year.
