Monday, July 19 1999 - Ericsson and Reuters have launched a joint project for the delivery of financial markets news and data to the latest WAP mobile phones and other handheld devices. Using Internet technologies that are optimized for mobile users, initial services will include interactive news, data retrieval and other on-line services for mobile users.

Ericsson will supply the technology, terminals and wireless datacom expertise, whilst Reuters will provide news and data, and introduce customers from the financial services sector. The project will start in London and Frankfurt and other key financial centers and will initially involve one thousand users in the financial services sector.

This marks the first stage in a development program that will deliver progressively advanced mobile datacom services to both financial professionals and individual investors. Services will include personalized displays of financial instruments such as share portfolios, interactive retrieval of news and data, and further on wireless on-line transactions.

Reuters real-time market news and data will be delivered to the latest Ericsson mobile companion, the MC218 and Ericsson's new smart phone R380, as well as other future products in the same category. Both the MC218 and the R380 are equipped with microbrowsers for interactive services using the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).

"This project uses advanced wireless datacom services and delivers much more than just straightforward short messages, known as SMS, on the display," says Martin Swenne, Manager at Ericsson Business Development, GSM Systems. "Together with Reuters, we're developing new interesting mobile datacom services, that will also be attractive in many other areas and to wider segments. For users, services will be even further improved later on by Ericsson's GPRS technology."

The project expects to confirm the potential of wireless devices as a new distribution medium globally for Reuters news and information services to financial professionals, and to test mobile Internet-based services in a fully functional WAP environment.

"The project aims to demonstrate that Reuters news and financial information can be made readily available to our clients when they are out of the office or away from their desks," says Jonathan Baile, Managing Director, Reuters Wireless Services. "We are committed to using wireless as additional means of delivery of our leading services."

Ericsson is a main initiator of WAP and one of the four founding members of the WAP Forum. Leveraging its combined leadership in mobile systems and wireless datacom, Ericsson is already a leader in GPRS systems. For Ericsson, this means a strong position for upcoming third-generation (3G) networks. This also gives Ericsson a head start as a partner for leading-edge operators and content providers to bring wireless datacom services to the market in a timely fashion to meet new and changing user demands.

Ericsson is the leading provider in the new telecoms world, with communications solutions that combine telecom and datacom technologies with freedom of mobility for the user. With more than 100,000 employees in 140 countries, Ericsson simplifies communications for its customers - network operators, service providers, enterprises and consumers - the world over.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT

Johan Wiklund, Ericsson Corporate Communications
Phone: +46 70 560 0134
E-mail: [email protected]

Martin Swenne, Manager, Business Development
Ericsson Business Unit GSM Systems
Phone: +46 8 585 324 46
E-mail: [email protected]

Jonathan Baile, Managing Director, Wireless Systems
Phone: +44 171 542 8178
E-mail: [email protected]

Adrian Duffield, Manager, Group Corporate Relations
Phone: +44 171 542 4728
E-mail: [email protected]

Company Information Reuters supplies the global financial markets and the news media with the widest range of information and news products including real-time financial data, collective investment data, numerical, textual, historical and graphical databases plus news, graphics, news video, and news pictures, reaching over 485,000 users in 57,900 locations.

Reuters designs and installs enterprise-wide information management and risk management systems for the financial markets as well as providing equity and foreign exchange transaction systems. It extensively uses Internet technologies for wider distribution of information and news, and also provides news and information to over 225 Internet sites. The Group employed 16,938 staff in 218 cities in 96 countries at 31 December 1998.

Reuters is the world's largest news and television agency with 2,072 journalists, photographers and camera operators in 182 bureau serving 157 countries. News is published in 22 languages. Instinet, an international electronic agency stockbroker, is an independently managed subsidiary of Reuters.

For more details see www.reuters.com/mediapack/

About WAP Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is the main worldwide industry standard for providing Internet communications and advanced services on digital mobile phones, pagers, Personal Digital Assistants and other wireless terminals. WAP is compatible with all mobile standards, including CDMA, GSM, PDC and TDMA, as well as 3G systems.

Ericsson, together with Nokia and Motorola, has introduced a new initiative to simplify recognition of mobile Internet applications. The Mobile Media Mode (WWW:MMM) will enable users, content providers and operators to recognize services, Internet sites and devices, such as smart phones, which provide access to these services.

Additional information about WAP is available at http://www.wapforum.org

To promote Internet access using a mobile phone, Ericsson was a very active part in establishing the WAP Forum. With more than 90 member companies, WAP Forum's primary goal is to bring together companies from all segments of the wireless industry value chain to ensure product interoperability and growth. A general objective is to enable the wireless industry and content developers to provide compatible products and services across a wide variety of platforms. WAP-compatible devices can translate incoming data to match the capabilities of the mobile device. A specific goal is to create a global wireless Internet protocol for small screen mobile terminals that aren't equipped to display HTML-based Web pages.

Ericsson's Mobile Internet portal is: http://mobile.ericsson.se/mobileinternet

About GPRS
General Packet Radio Services (GPRS) uses packet switching that allows information or data to be treated as a series of "packets", rather than a continuous stream of bits as with most of today's mobile data services. All in all, greatly improving wireless Internet services for users. The network is only used when there is actually information to be sent or received, making GPRS connections very efficient from a user and network point of view.

GPRS is a common step for TDMA and GSM operators to handle higher data speeds and offer 3G packet capabilities. Ericsson's GPRS system is an open standard solution, enabling multi-operator and vendor interoperability.