Ericsson intends to offer dual-band, mobile-phone handset in Hong Kong

Ericsson intends to start offering a dual-band, mobile-phone handset in Hong Kong designed to appeal to subscribers looking to use services in the United States as well as Asia.

The handset, called the I 888, will allow customers to move between using the common GSM 900 services offered throughout Asia and the PCS services offered in the US at the 1900 MHz frequency.

Existing dual-band phones offered in Hong Kong can utilise PCS only at the 1800 frequency and so are useless in the US. Ericsson's general manager of mobile phones for China, Kinson Loo said he did not expect the handset to be sold in large volumes, but would satisfy a niche demand.

Hong Kong is the first market in Asia in which Ericsson is releasing the phone as a test of its sales potential. Hong Kong users with a GSM SIM card can roam on to US PCS networks, but need to change handsets.

Ericsson also hopes that all of its handset production will move to being dual-band sets using the 900/1800 technology by the end of the March.

In Hong Kong, both SmarTone and Hutchison offer dual-band networks, however it is likely that Hongkong Telecom will merge its GSM and PCS networks into a single user interface.