Europolitan increase net speed to 43.2 kilobits per second

World first for Europolitan Increasing net speed to 43.2 kilobits per second Europolitan is the first mobile operator in the world to offer mobile data traffic at a speed of 43.2 kbit/s (kilobits per second). "This speed is directly comparable to the fixed network," says Mikael Kluge, Marketing Director at Europolitan. "An on-line connection over the GSM network gives you much greater freedom than a fixed connection. It basically means that you can carry your office around in your pocket." The new service will be part of Europolitan's new subscription structure. It makes transmission possible at both 14.4 kbit/s and 43.2 kbit/s, depending on the speed supported by the mobile telephone used. There are already a number of telephone models that support 14.4 kbit/s, although telephones supporting 43.2 kbit/s are not expected to be available until later this autumn. This higher transmission speed allows the development of new, advanced wireless services on the network, and it is a prerequisite for many future data services. It also accelerates services such as Europolitan's data service, LAN direkt (mobile access to a company's local data networks), and the europolitan@internet Internet service. "The GSM network's low transmission speed has been a bottleneck in using mobile data services. Now, Europolitan's new service will allow you to surf or send e-mails via a mobile telephone almost as fast as via a fixed connection," says Mikael Kluge, Marketing Director at Europolitan. A combination of three technologies has been used to achieve high speed. Firstly, a new type of channel coding enables users to utilise a greater part of each time slot that the information is sent in for data transmission. Secondly, a new compression algorithm, V42bis, accelerates the speed, and thirdly, the HSCSD (High Speed Circuit Switched Data) standard makes it possible to use several time slots for data transmission, instead of a single one. Europolitan AB is a Swedish GSM operator prioritising service and quality. The company has its head office in Karlskrona and is at the cutting edge of the development of high-tech services for GSM 900/1800. The Europolitan Group, which includes the sister company Europolitan Stores AB and the stock-market listed parent company Europolitan Holdings AB, currently employs around 800 people. For more information please visit www.europolitan.se For more information, please contact: Mikael Kluge, Marketing Director, Europolitan AB, tel: +46 708 33 12 05, e-mail: mikael.kluge@europolitan.se Lotta Hansson, Press Relations, Europolitan AB, tel: +46 708 33 13 51, e-mail: lotta.hansson@europolitan.se ------------------------------------------------------------ Please visit http://www.bit.se for further information The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/1999/09/03/19990903BIT00240/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/1999/09/03/19990903BIT00240/bit0002.pdf