Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2004/01/06/mobilcom_returns_3g_licence/

Mobilcom returns 3G licence

By Jan Libbenga

Posted in On-Prem, 6th January 2004 21:32 GMT

Europe in Brief Germany's Mobilcom is to return its UMTS license to the federal telecommunications and postal regulator. The move comes more than three years after the company bought one of six available licenses in Germany for a stunning € 8,5 billion.

Mobilcom already had started building the network, but now has sold most of its infrastructure to rival e-plus. The company - 28.5 per cent owned by France Telecom - still plans to deliver high-performance wireless internet services, but won't need its own network.



Denmark: BA (hons) Games

Denmark is to have a entirely new masters university education: the development and production of computer games, Berlingske Tidende reports. The two-year course, the first in its kind in the country, starts September 2004 and will include both theory and production.

Denmark apparently lacks skilled game programmers and Danish games companies are having difficulty finding staff. Among the participating schools are the University of Copenhagen, the Graphic Arts Institute of Denmark, University of IT, Technical University of Denmark and the Danish School of Design.



Switzerland: medical records online

Patients registered with a doctor’s practice in Geneva have been given unrestricted access to their entire medical records online, Swissinfo reports. Patients with the Médicentre in Balexert can access their records without asking, a world’s first.

For the past six years, emergency service SOS Médecins Geneva and the Balexert medical centre have converted the raw data of 480,000 consultations into a format suitable for transmission via the web. The patient is the only and legal owner of the medical records and is allowed to make corrections, if necessary.



Czech Republic: more IT investments

Foreign investment activities in the Czech Republic are shifting from industry to technology and services, according to The Prague Post. In the last six months, investor interest has become increasingly focused on two sectors besides the traditional engineering and manufacturing: technology, media and telecoms, and health care and pharmaceuticals.

Deloitte & Touche believes that with a tentative global economic recovery in progress, Central Europe is one of the areas where above-average levels of growth are expected.

DHL, one of the world's largest logistics companies, plans to invest €500 million over five years in a new data center in Prague. The company decided to move its IT operations from Britain and Switzerland to Prague because of this country's cheaper work force.

ExxonMobil will follow DHL's lead and build an administrative center in Prague to service its European operations. Indian IT firm Infosys is also considering entering the Czech market in 2004. ®