The Czech Republic's Eurotel Praha launched its UMTS network yesterday. This is one year earlier than Eurotel committed to in its UMTS license. No extra activation is needed to enter the world of UMTS - customers only need a Eurotel SIM card and a UMTS enabled handset.

"Data services are being used more and more frequently. The demand for quality and fast mobile transmission and Internet access is increasing. People want to use their mobile handset for voice calls, but also as a full-scale source of information and entertainment. And we are bringing everything to our customers now," said Stanislav Kura, Chief Strategy and New Product Development Officer of Eurotel Praha, "And we are certainly going to further extend the music, TV, and other content," he added.

Eurotel�s UMTS network covers the area of Prague and downtown Brno. Next year Eurotel will cover other cities in the Czech Republic as well. Eurotel plans to cover more than 50 % of the Czech population over the next two years.

Initially the maximum data transmission speed in the UMTS network will be 384 kbit/s. At the beginning of the next year Eurotel is going to increase the speed up to 1.8 Mbit/s by implementing the HSDPA upgrade. Within the following two years the speed will continuously grow to 14.4 Mbit/s. In combination with the CDMA2000 1xEV-DO technology, now being used by as many as 56,000 customers, Eurotel will make the high-speed mobile data communication available to more than 80 % of the Czech population.