Telefonica Moviles Espana launched a pre-commercial UMTS service in Spain for its corporate customers. The carrier will distribute UMTS PCMCIA cards to its enterprise clients, enabling them to access all UMTS Oficina MoviStar data services from laptops at speeds of up to 384 kilobits per second, the operator said.
The operator said the launch meets the strategic commitment made with the Spanish government, whereby the pre-commercial launch of UMTS service is set for the last quarter of 2003 and the commercial launch of third-generation services is scheduled to begin in 2004, subject to handset availability.
The enterprise customers are in various industry sectors located in specific areas of the 40 cities where Telefonica Moviles has UMTS coverage.
Telefonica Moviles Espana said it plans to invest about $1.2 billion in 3G infrastructure between 2003 and 2006. The company is targeting to have coverage in the 52 provincial capitals of Spain by year-end and between 7,000 and 8,000 UMTS base stations in 2005.
Telefonica Moviles said Nokia Corp. and L.M. Ericsson supplied the initial 750 base stations for the project. Lucent Technologies Inc. supplied the PCMCIA technology.
