One year late, France Telecom last week introduced its Groupe Speciale Mobile pan-European digital cellular service under the name Itineris. The service is planned to be up and running in the Lille, Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Nice regions and along the main roads between them from the end of this year. By the end of 1993, all large towns and main roads will be covered. Some $817m has been invested by the public operator which aims to install 300 to 400 base stations over the next three years. For a monthly subscription equivalent to $65, the charge for calls is $0.54 a minute in metropolitan France, and $0.91 a minute when calling Paris. Subcribers will be identified to the network not by their phone, but by a personal Smart Card that they must insert – into any phone – before they can use the network: France Telecom no doubt hopes that that will prove more secure than the id entifier chips currently installed in phones, which are routinely fraudulently erased and substituted.
