The report was a collaborative effort by British tech investment group Durlacher, Finnish venture capital firm Eqvitec, and the Helsinki University of Technology. The report, ‘UMTS: An Investment Perspective’ was based on interviews with industry players in Japan and Europe, with a focus on Finnish, Swedish, German, and British firms.

• European market for mobile Internet services, including mobile data traffic, will be worth $71-billion by 2005, on condition that UMTS handsets and services are available by early in 2003.
• The entire non-voice service market will continue to grow at an annual rate of 72 percent.
• The high cost of licensing fees should be incorporated into the business models.
• To recoup UMTS licensing and infrastructure costs, operators will be encouraged to generate revenue by way of the following:

• Pushing more advanced, revenue generating services to market. The authors foresee over 3,000 mobile applications running over wireless networks within the next five years.

• Promoting the service provider business model. Operators are encouraged to act as wholesalers to Virtual Operators (VO) in an effort to quickly penetrate the market. VOs will be built around strong brands from telecommunications, retail, media, and financial and automotive industries.

• Believing in WAP. Despite its initial difficulties, analysts see the success of WAP will lie primarily in the GPRS presentation layer for more phone-centric devices. PDAs, in contrast, will no longer be connected by WAP but via a conventional HTML-browser.

The basic thrust of the report is to encourage operators to shift their strategy towards maximizing revenues and profitability during 2001. To generate new revenue they are advised to use multiple distribution channels to market and push services to customers directly and via VOs.

‘UMTS Report: An Investment Perspective’ examines the current mobile market, new mobile business models, the impact of technology, and mobile applications and services.