TIW, a Montreal-based wireless telecommunications group, is just weeks away from throwing the switch in Britain on the enhanced specialized mobile radio services (ESMR) system, to be run by its 78-percent-owned Dolphin Telecom Plc unit.

Operating under the brand name ``ExpressNet, it will be Britain's first commercially available integrated voice and data mobile communications network, said TIW President and Chief Executive Bruno Ducharme.

``The launch of the service is anticipated for the end of the second quarter or the beginning of the third quarter,'' he told reporters before the company's annual meeting.

``We are building the network so that at the launch we will cover 90 percent of the U.K. population,'' he added.

Dolphin will start up a service in France in the third quarter and Germany will follow at the end of the first quarter of 2000. The company's capital investment for the ESMR project in those three countries will total about $2 billion when completed.

Ducharme said Dolphin will be the first pan-European digital mobile communications network, eventually covering Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Portugal and Spain. Nokia will supply the handsets for Britain and France, while Motorola will supply Germany.

ESMR is a ``cousin'' of the Global Standard for Mobile (GSM) technology used by many wireless carriers. ESMR gives the subscriber access to digital cellular, mobile radio, wireless data transfer and paging in one lightweight handset similar to a cell phone.

Growing rapidly since its U.S. introduction in 1996, ESMR offers technological advantages over older analog specialized mobile radio (SMR) systems.

Under ESMR, for example, British subscribers would be able to get their voice mail without dialing long distance while roaming in continental Europe .

Build-out costs for ESMR networks can also be one-fifth those of a conventional GSM network, TIW officials said.

Dolphin is already Europe's largest specialized mobile radio operator, with 300,000 subscribers and licenses covering a population of more than 200 million. TIW expects analog SMR system users to migrate to the digital ESMR platforms. Ducharme said TIW is also looking to expand in Brazil, where it is among the top four cellular operators. TIW holds licenses in four Brazilian regions, and has 900,000 subscribers out of a total regional population of 52 million.

TIW plans to participate when Brazil begins auctioning digital personal communications services (PCS) licenses for Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo and other large cities.

``(This) will give us the opportunity to move from our current footprint into an even broader footprint and basically a national operating presence,'' he said.

TIW released first-quarter results Thursday, showing a net loss of $82 million, or $1.13 a share, versus a net loss of $34.5 million, or 53 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. Revenues were $128 million against $46 million.

Chief Financial Officer Pierre Fitzgibbon said TIW will be ''neutral or positive'' on a pretax cash-flow basis this year.

He expects Dolphin to be pretax cash-flow negative this year and next as it builds out its system. TIW's Brazil and Romanian operations will be pretax cash-flow positive this year, based on current projects.

TIW shares rose 35 Canadian cents to $30.55 on the Toronto Stock Exchange Thursday.

* Get More News

Use the search engine below to see more on...

______________


______________