Monday, May 15, 2006

Bite to launch HSDPA in September

Bite Latvija will launch HDSPA with stable download speeds of 2 Mbps in September, effectively postponing its planned launch of 3G services with slower date speeds originally scheduled for June.
This will be a flat fee service, probably comparable to what Bite charges in Lithuania for EDGE, which is around equivalent LVL 20, though no Latvian price has been set.
At the same time, the company will offer 22 channels of international and local mobile TV, presumably also viewable on laptops equipped with HSDPA cards. There will be a fixed premium fee for watching mobile TV. A collection of 300 000 songs will be available for download through the enhanced Bite Plus entertainment portal
The reason for the delayed launch is that Bite sees more of an opportunity in waiting and launching something that offers DSL comparable speeds for business and a high speed entertainment platform for the consumer market. In addition, Bite is counting on HSDPA phone /handset availability by September, so that there will be demand from the consumer side and, of course, the inevitable offering of cheap HSDPA phones at Bite outlets.

The Story of the Story

Exclusivity of news is like freshness in fish. It is governed by rules outside the control of the fisherman who catches it. To eat fresh fish, you gotta cook it fresh. I was given the Bite to launch HSDPA story on Friday. It did not go in Monday's paper. It will not be in Tuesday's paper. I don't know when it will be published. However, no one in the Latvian media seems to read this blog anymore, so maybe, by a process akin to mummification, the story will still be fresh looking when finally published.

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