TELECOMS & MOBILE
Meteor Christmas launch 'is still on'
06-10-2000
by Ray Okonski
Ireland's third GSM mobile phone operator, Meteor, says it is still on course for a Christmas launch and is keeping a low media profile while preparations continue.
"We're well down the road as far as testing goes, and we're satisfied with the way all our bits and pieces are coming together," Meteor chief operations officer Peter Quinn told ElectricNews.Net.
"The system has already made its first calls between mobiles and fixed networks and we're currently in the process of doing all the things we need to do to ensure it all works," he added. Meteor's first base transmitting station (BTS) is already in place and a number of others have been commissioned.
Meteor's entry into the market was delayed for two years by various legal challenges that prevented the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR) from formally issuing the licence.
The company finally received its licence on June 19 and has had to move quickly in order not to miss the all-important Christmas sell-through market. Initial promises of 80 percent population coverage within eight months of launch have been modified to 70 per cent within six.
When ElectricNews.Net went in search of a Meteor signal in early October, a country-wide drive from Sligo, Galway, Limerick, Tralee and from Cork and the main trunk route via Fermoy and Cashel to Portaloise revealed nothing if infrastructure was in place, it had yet to be turned on and integrated with the rest of the network. If anything, the drive proved how well Digifone and Èircell have improved their network coverage in recent years.
Only when Dublin was reached did our equipment show the presence of the young pretender, with a new network ID code and name.
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