Europe Norway : SONOFON has been awarded the fourth Danish UMTS-license by The Danish National IT and Telecom Agency at a price of DKK 533 million. SONOFON plans to launch its first 3G services in 2006. Telenor has already 3G services in Norway, Sweden and Hungary and SONOFON will benefit from Telenor's experience in the roll-out of the Danish 3G network.

By obtaining the 3G license, SONOFON ensures that its customers will achieve the full benefit from fast mobile data connections and a wide variety of advanced mobile telephony services.

Quick launch

SONOFON will initially launch 3G services for business customers who will benefit from high mobile bandwidth for services such as mobile e-mail and fast access to internal IT systems. Subsequently, SONOFON will launch 3G services for consumers.

- We are looking forward to launching effective and exciting 3G services for businesses and consumers alike. Roll-out of the new mobile network is progressing rapidly and we expect to launch the first services in major Danish cities during 2006, said Henrik Clausen, CEO, SONOFON.

Perfect timing

- We are very pleased with obtaining the 3G license at this point when the market is almost mature. Our costumers are aware of 3G and 3G handsets are being sold in increasing numbers. The Danish authorities have been expedient in putting the license up for auctioning and we will now ensure that the license is converted rapidly into services which will benefit our costumers and the competition in the Danish market, Henrik Clausen also said.

With 'e-go', SONOFON today has Denmark's largest mobile portal with more than 200,000 visitors a month. Here, costumers can get news, games and a lot more. This service will now be used as a base for launch of more advanced 3G services.

Like the other Danish UMTS licenses, the fourth license covers all of Denmark. According to the terms of the license, network coverage must exceed 30 percent of the population by 2009 and 80 percent of the population by 2013.