Vodafone and Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM) are gearing themselves up for launching 3G services in Italy this week. They will increase competition for Hutchison which launched third generation phones in Italy in March 2003

TIM claimed it had already received orders for more than 450,000 but conceded these were from dealers rather than actual subscribers. These also include orders for Edge handsets rather than full 3G.

Hutchison Whampoa claims 1.73m subscribers to its 3G services in Austria, Australia, Hong Kong, Denmark, Italy, Sweden and the UK. ®

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