News Burst: Orange outpaces Cellnet

Orange is set to leapfrog BT Cellnet in providing its customers with high speed mobile services, according to a Forrester report published Wednesday.

Forrester dismisses Cellnet's claims of providing a full commercial rollout of GPRS services by the summer as "pure marketing" and claims Orange will gain first-mover advantage with the March rollout of its HSCSD network.

"There will be nothing like a full commercial launch [of Cellnet's GPRS services]," said Lars Godell, author of the Forrester report. "They are trying to steal the limelight from Orange."

Forrester foresees a number of problems that will prevent Cellnet from achieving a full rollout of GPRS in less than a year. Cellnet managing director Peter Erskine committed in March to a full commercial GPRS rollout by this summer.

Full story to follow.

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