Berner Zeitung BZ, Berne, Switzerland
18 October 2003

What did the International Telecommunication Union's Telecom World 2003 bring? Mobile pioneer Walter Heutschi speaks about his impressions.

by Hans's Peter Arnold, Geneva

"First I was alittle disappointed", said Walter Heutschi, CEO of the Bernese company Comfone AG, a participant at ITU Telecom World 2003 in Geneva. The exhibition and forum finishes today. Heutschi: "the exibition's size and number of visitors was many times smaller than at the fair four years ago." However, during the fair this disillusionment obviously yielded to optimism. "I made some very many good contacts. We could even close some preliminary agreements, and that is very unusual at a fair."

A highlight came directly on the opening day: Heutschi was able to explain to the King of Spain, Juan Carlos, and Swiss President Pascal Couchepin, in three minutes how Comfone acted as a mediator between international mobile phone operators. On this occasion Heutschi could also describe his new platform that interconnects individual hotspots.

Open Platform
In contrast to Swisscom, the model developed by Heutschi concerns an open platform, which can be used by very many telecoms operators. Also, Heutschi's solution is a step more modern. In any case, he is on the verge of winning a new contract with a large European telecommunications operator.

He is pleased that many small enterprises were present at the Telecom World 2003. According to Heutschi, this brings a lot of new know-how and entrepreneural spirit.

"Absence will avenge itself"
The absence of some large companies such as Siemens, Nokia, Alactal and Lucent will
according to his opinion have its revenge. "The telecommunications companies must watch out that they are not rolled over by the strongly represented software companies, such as Intel or Microsoft."

In all other respects the fair confirmed his earlier statements about current trends (as this newspaper reported earlier in the week). Heutschi referred to Intel. Intel presented a prototype for a universal communication platform for mobile phones, which connects GSM, GPRS, WLAN and Voice of over IP.

Contact:
Louise Sinclair - Comfone AG
+41 (0)31 341 11 74
+41 (0)79 359 91 80
louise.sinclair@comfone.com