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Siemens shows U10 UMTS phone
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By Jørgen Sundgot, Friday 1 November 2002  
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Just in time for Christmas, Siemens has begun distributing its new U10 tri-band GSM/WCDMA phone to selected European operators to help these build up UMTS networks and services.
Despite the initial hype, UMTS hasn't arrived nearly as soon as it was predicted to in Europe - and manufacturers are frequently blamed for being partially responsible by not having handsets available. Siemens, for one, is about to render that argument void by readying the company's first UMTS phone, the U10, in time for Christmas - but the first batches will go to operators for testing and trial purposes, so don't think you're going to get your hands on one just yet.
 | The U10 is Siemens' first UMTS phone
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The U10, based on a hardware reference design from Motorola, is Siemens' first UMTS color-screen mobile phone operating both in WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) networks and in GSM/GPRS 900/1800 and 1900 MHz frequency bands. Siemens Mobile will distribute U10 3G handsets, a first result of its technical collaboration with Motorola, to selected operators to help build up UMTS networks and services.
In becoming one of the first manufacturers to offer 3G handsets to UMTS carriers, the Germany-headquartered company has also created a dedicated 3G service and customer support team to assist their customers to drive next generation telecomms development.
Feature-wise, the U10 sports an integrated camera which rotates 180 degrees and captures video with sound and still images, and supports sending these either via MMS or e-mail. Data transfer speeds up to 384 Kbps provide more than double the speed of current GPRS solutions in theory - and slightly more under real life conditions due to the full potential of GPRS services not being exploited today - will let users surf WAP 2.0 websites and download J2ME applications at previously unmatched speeds, while it's also possible to connect peripheral devices such as laptop computers through Bluetooth, USB or infrared.
Also, the U10 supports video streaming with file formats such as MPEG4 and playing back music stored in MP3 and AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) formats. 2 MB of internal memory is available, which can be expanded by means of MMC memory cards.
Siemens Mobile aims to use the 3G network trials as a platform to test its first 3G consumer product, and will first use the U10 for selected customers and form a new 3G customer support department to support those clients and assess their feedback regarding the phone’s capabilities. The manufacturer said it believes recording, watching and sending video, as well as testing video download speeds, will not only reveal the performance of UMTS features, but also help both network operators and Siemens mobile to assess consumer expectations to ensure the 3G promise matches its delivery.
The U10 will be available with selected operators in Europe for testing purposes from December 2002.
An additional hi-res picture of the Siemens U10 is available on the following page.
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