Leuven, Belgium – March 10, 2006 – Option N.V. (Euronext: OPTI, OTC: OPNVY), the wireless technology company, today announced that O2 Germany is demonstrating Surf@home II HSDPA, a customized version of Option’s GlobeSurfer® HSDPA, at CeBIT 2006 (Hall 12, Stand B26). O2 will show the ease of use of the product and point out the benefits Surf@home II HSDPA brings to business users working from satellite offices or mobile offices and to consumers accessing the internet from home.
O2 Germany has more than 10 million customers and is the fastest growing operator in the German market. The company is fully owned by O2 plc which has 100% ownership of mobile network operators in three countries – the UK, Germany and Ireland – as well as a leading mobile Internet portal business. All of these businesses are branded as ‘O2’. The company is a founding member of Starmap Mobile Alliance and has 25.7 million customers in total. On October 31, 2005, it was announced that the Spanish-based telecommunications group Telefónica S.A. made a cash offer to acquire O2. The combined entity brings together two strong, successful, growth-orientated companies, and creates a new, strong pan-European/global telecoms player. It is the second largest global wireless operator outside of China, in terms of active subscribers with more than 116 million mobile customers.
Announced at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona last month, the GlobeSurfer® HSDPA is the third product within Option’s fixed-wireless product family aimed at delivering flexible wireless broadband connectivity to Small Offices, Home Office and Mobile Office environments. The GlobeSurfer® HSDPA is the fastest broadband wireless router available today and enables the user to establish an instant hotspot with a speed of up to 1.8 Mbps over an HSDPA connection and share this connection with multiple users.
Designed for ease-of-use, and simplicity of installation, the versatile GlobeSurfer® HSDPA is ideally suited to Small Office and Home Office environments where it can be shared by multiple users. However, comprehensive support and remote administration features combined with user-authentication capabilities make it a flexible and cost-effective solution to the challenge of providing reliable and secure data connectivity to Mobile or Temporary Offices.
ABOUT OPTION:
Option NV (www.option.com), the wireless technology company, is a leading innovator in the design, development and manufacture of 3G WCDMA (HSDPA and UMTS), EDGE, GPRS, GSM and WLAN technology products for wireless connectivity solutions. Option has built up an enviable reputation for creating exciting products that enhance the performance and functionality of wireless communications. Option’s headquarters are in Leuven, Belgium. The company has Research & Development in Leuven, a Software and Applications development centre in Adelsried (Germany), a wireless router development centre in Stockholm (Sweden) and an ISO 9002 production engineering and logistics facility in Cork, Ireland.
FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Douglas Ros, Vice President Business Development & Marketing
Tel +32 (0)16 317 411
E-mail: d.ros@option.com
Frederic Convent, CFO
Tel + 32 (0) 16 317 411
E-mail: investor@option.com