Europolitan Vodafone estimates that costs for the company's UMTS initiative will total around SEK 10 billion. This total includes costs for infrastructure, systems, marketing and product management. Europolitan Vodafone has also signed a collaboration agreement with the Vodafone Group that will lead, amongst other things, to substantial cost savings in product management and innovation and supply chain management.
The estimate costs of SEK 10 billion includes the company's own UMTS network, which it plans to build in Stockholm, Gothenburg, MalmC6 and Karlskrona. It also includes Europolitan Vodafone's share for the infrastructure to be procured by 3G Infrastructure Services AB to help provide the remaining UMTS coverage.
"The cost scenario for our UMTS investments has benefited from the fact that we are sharing a major part of the infrastructure investment costs with Hi3G via our joint company, 3G Infrastructure Services AB. For our own infrastructure procurement, we also have access to the Vodafone Group's global price lists," says Europolitan Vodafone's President and CEO Jon Risfelt.
3G Infrastructure Services AB is currently negotiating with a third party, Orange, about taking part in the joint company. If these negotiations result in Orange joining the collaboration within the joint company, Europolitan Vodafone's investment costs will be reduced even further.
Collaboration agreement with the Vodafone Group Europolitan Vodafone has signed a partnership agreement with the Vodafone Group designed to increase their joint economies of scale in a number of different areas. The agreement covers collaboration in the areas of product management and innovation, IT & technology management, supply chain management, brand management and multinational account management.
Product management and innovation relates to the joint development of new services, such as mobile payment services and multimedia services. This is crucial, since the 3G standard only applies to a limited extent to service development. As part of an international group, Europolitan Vodafone will be able to offer its customers smart services that will become standard, as they will work across the entire Vodafone Group. It is virtually impossible for an individual operator to develop such services and make them work internationally. Europolitan Vodafone participates actively in the ongoing UMTS product development within the Vodafone Group and will be able to capitalise on the scale of this work and the cost efficiency it entails.
"This collaboration gives us access both to a larger number of services and to services that we would not otherwise have the resources to develop ourselves," says Jon Risfelt, President and CEO of Europolitan Vodafone.
Many of Europolitan Vodafone's customers travel a great deal and impose considerable demands on fully functioning mobile services wherever they go. Global collaboration will enable more services to function at an international level.
"One good example of global collaboration is our Eurocall service, which charges uniform prices for making or receiving calls in Europe. We will also be introducing the possibility of using the same speed-dial number (such as 888 to the EuroVoice answering machine) in a growing number of countries," says Jon Risfelt.
In the field of IT and technology management, Europolitan Vodafone will be collaborating with the Vodafone Group on investigating their joint future investment requirements in terms of technical platforms. Global supply chain management will allow Europolitan Vodafone to capitalise on the strength of its position within the Vodafone Group with regard to prices and supply terms, particularly as they apply to the purchase of 3G telephones. As regards brand management, the Vodafone Group collaborates on shared global marketing initiatives and in the field of multinational account management, all sales efforts are co-ordinated. This opens up far better opportunities of offering multinational companies international turnkey mobile communication solutions than would be possible for an individual operator.
"The collaboration with Vodafone further strengthens Europolitan Vodafone's chances of a successful 3G launch and we are really looking forward to working even more closely with the various companies and networks within the Vodafone Group, to whom Europolitan Vodafone's employees will be able to offer their own expertise in exchange. The collaboration is an integral part of our efforts to achieve greater cost efficiency in everything we do," comments Jon Risfelt.
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