LG and Motorola win low-cost handset races

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 13 February 2007 04:58

Business IT - Technology

The GSM Association has confirmed LG as the winner of its competition to produce a low cost 3G handset for developing countries. And Motorola - winner of a similar contest for 2G handsets in 2005 - has won the 'Best Ultra Low Cost Handset' award at 3GSM World Congress with its 2G Motofone F3.

LG's KU250, was selected by 12 operators that jointly drew up specs for a low-cost 3G phone.  It is powered by the Qualcomm Mobile Station Modem MSM6245 chipset for WCDMA/EDGE/GPRS/GSM handsets and features Internet browsing, mobile music and a wide range of other 3G services.

As a result, the KU250 could, potentially be launched on their networks on six continents that have over 620 million subscribers in total. It will, however be will available to all 3GSM mobile phone operators from the second quarter of 2007.

The GSA says the KU250 will be "available at a wholesale price about 30 percent less than the typical entry-level 3G phone and fully-competitive with the multimedia second-generation handsets on sale today." It was selected from 19 handsets submitted by eight different manufacturers.

The 12 operators also highly commended a 3G handset submitted by Nokia. Also capable of supporting a range of 3G multimedia services, the handset, which is built on the Nokia 6151 platform, uses a Texas Instrument chipset designed to Nokia's specifications.

Meanwhile Motorola's 2G GSM Motofone F3 was recognised by the GSA as the 'Best Ultra Low Cost Handset - 2007' at the Association's annual awards ceremony at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona.