PR releases

T-Mobile Delivers World's First Nationwide Commercial Rollout of FLASH-OFDM in Slovakia

BRATISLAVA, Slovak Republic--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 17, 2005--T-Mobile Slovakia (henceforth referred to also as "T-Mobile Slovensko, a.s.") and Siemens today announce the launch of world's first nationwide commercial mobile broadband service using Flarion Technologies' FLASH-OFDM network technology. As of today, the service is available in selected areas of Bratislava, and in 19 other cities around Slovakia.

During the official launch event in Slovakia today, Michael Guenther, Member of the Board, T-Mobile International and Chairman of the Board, T-Mobile Slovensko, a.s., stated: "Mobile broadband access is an extremely important asset in today's world of communication. It will soon become a vital part of countries' infrastructure. I am very pleased to see our company in Slovakia be the world's pioneer for this exciting new technology that has the power to deliver broadband Internet to offices and homes, even in areas that lack other telecommunications infrastructure."

"By launching our Fast Internet service using FLASH-OFDM technology, we are making a giant leap in increasing the lagging broadband Internet penetration in Slovakia," stated Robert Chvatal, CEO, T-Mobile Slovakia. "We want to provide a broadband Internet choice also outside of big cities and increase the choice beyond DSL and cable," he added.

Customers of T-Mobile Slovakia's service will experience mobile data speeds of 1 Mbps average in the downlink and up to 256 Kb ps average in the uplink, making it suitable for both business and residential customers.

"I am very proud that we were able to support T-Mobile starting this innovative mobile broadband network. T-Mobile, Siemens and Flarion got this project up and running in record time. Siemens had the task of integrating the FLASH-OFDM network into T-Mobile Slovakia's existing mobile network. Among other things, our interfaces ensure that the operator can record and bill the customers of the new broadband network with the aid of the databases for its mobile network," explained Christoph Caselitz, President of Mobile Networks at Siemens Communications.

"As governments across Europe open up new and existing spectrum for mobile broadband services, so network operators are looking for new technologies that will allow them to deliver new and differentiated IP services to complement the services they are currently delivering" said Ray Dolan, chairman and CEO of Flarion Technologies. "T-Mobile has consistently been at the forefront of testing new technologies, including very successful trials of FLASH-OFDM in the Netherlands. This nationwide commercial rollout of FLASH-OFDM marks a fundamental change in the landscape of the industry where the operator and their subscribers' experience is placed back at the heart of the industry's development."

As part of this deployment, Siemens and Flarion are delivering to T-Mobile a complete FLASH-OFDM solution for the 450 MHz frequency spectrum: RadioRouter(R) base stations, desktop modems and PC cards. Furthermore Siemens had the task of integrating the FLASH-OFDM network into T-Mobile Slovakia's existing mobile network.

With Flarion's FLASH-OFDM technology, mobile operators can seamlessly connect enterprise customers to corporate LANs and consumers to the Internet with the speed and low packet latency that exceed stringent wired network requirements, with mobile broadband and cellular coverage. Using a FLASH-OFDM data card, users do not need to make any modifications to their user settings to experience broadband connectivity in a mobile environment. The spatial extension of the FLASH-OFDM cells in the 450 MHz frequency band makes this technology ideal, for example, for providing coverage in rural areas.