Invitation to tender: UMTS market forecast
The European Commission, DG XIII, has published an open call for tenders for the completion of a study entitled "UMTS Market Forecast". The Commission's Green Paper on mobile and personal communications in the EU, launched in 1994, identified two areas of particular importance to the development of the European market: - Continued support for the evolution towards personal communications; - The need to ensure a smooth transition towards UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System). This view was broadly endorsed in the consultation on the Green Paper and supported by the European Parliament and the Council. Enormous importance is placed on the development of UMTS for Europe. Europe needs to consolidate its current success with second generation technologies on the world market. Moreover, the report of Commissioner Bangemann's High Level Group on "Europe and the Information Society" identified mobile and personal communications as a necessary building block of the Information Society and advised the strengthening of its potential. This political debate is complemented by developments in the market which show a rapid growth in the popularity of mobile communications, and a diversification of users' needs in a society which is progressively ageing and becoming more international. This means that the social environment surrounding mobile communications is in a constant state of change. The evolution path from current second generation mobile technologies towards UMTS is currently under development. As part of the work, there exists an urgent need to carry out a comprehensive study on the expected evolution of the mobile market. The objectives of the study are as follows: - To produce an extensive analysis of the broad societal changes in Europe over the next decades, in relation to the mobile communications market; - To predict important market movements and distil the consequent demands which will be made on the evolution of the mobile market; - To produce an extensive forecast up to 2015 for the mobile market in size and service requirements for different market segments; - To produce a reference requirements specification for UMTS; - To produce a robust and extensive forecast for the evolution of technology. The terms of reference for the study may be requested, in writing (requests sent by fax must be confirmed by letter posted before the deadline indicated), from: European Commission DG XIII - Telecommunications, Information Market and Exploitation of Research Ms. A. Birkett 200 rue de la Loi (BU31 3/58) B-1049 Brussels Tel. +32-2-2968942; Fax +32-2-2968393 Completed proposals should be sent to the same address.