3GSM Congress in Cannes – world premiere of our GSM/GPRS phones

Response from the market: unique concept within 4–6 months

At the 3GSM Congress in Cannes in February, the RTX Telecom GSM/GPRS phone received a lot of publicity. Along with our mechanical partner – vertical preproduction management - we enjoyed a great week talking to many of our customers and answering their enquiries. We took two models with us, a bar type for the business market, and a dual folder (clam shell) type phone for the consumer market. Both phones are nearly production-ready and weigh less than 90 grams. Customers can choose from a range of pre-defined handset designs and then add their own particular brand name. This enables them to bring a mobile phone to market with lead times as low as 4–6 months.

One-stop shopping – the way to go

Originally, we considered the consumer model, the dual folder, as the ideal choice for the Chinese market. However, we alsoreceived many enquiries from European companies that wanted this model for their home markets. The market gave us a clear response – our one-stop shopping concept, in which we manage the entire process from idea to mechanical design and final development, is unique. Not only can we handle the entire development process, but we can also help with production and the associated software. To ensure that we can provide our customers with the best possible solutions, the handsets incorporate the Motorola i.250 platform (chipset and protocol stack), which is one of the most well-proven and competitive

GSM/GPRS engines currently on the market.

Cellular manufacturing solution (CMS) – the world’s only end-to-end concept

We also presented our CMS at the congress in Cannes. This is a multi-language turnkey solution for organising the ordering, manufacturing and logistics associated with cellular volume production. The CMS is extremely versatile and its sophisticated variant management makes it possible to configure solutions efficiently and effectively in cellular manufacturing facilities of any size. The variant management concept allows producers to manage volumes of any size – large or small – and to seamlessly shift between variants as well as EMEI, SIM locks, greetings texts, etc. Resource planning is conducted by an MRP system that integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Navision systems, although it can also easily interface directly with a

customer’s existing ERP/MRP solutions. This just goes to show how versatile this product is.

GSM/GPRS/802.11a/b/g PC Card Concept

In Cannes, we also launched our first combined GSM/GPRS/802.11a/b/g PC Card concept, which will be available for brand manufacturers and brand operators in Q4 2003. “The first combined GSM/GPRS/802.11a/b/g PC Card is perfect for the telecommuter segment, which needs faster, simpler, cheaper and more flexible mobile data connectivity via e-mail, company intranets and the Internet,” says Vice President Jens Toftgaard Petersen, RTX Telecom.

“We see two different market drivers on the combined WLAN/mobile market – mobile operators and wireless Internet service providers. Specially targeting the mobile operators, we will provide a product where a SIM card controls both the GSM/GPRS and the WLAN connections. This will give the end-user one bill, one supplier, one installation, one user interface and one authentication,” adds Mr Petersen.