Toshiba to base telecoms research in UK

Toshiba is to set up a £10m telecommunications research lab in Bristol, England. The lab will work on third generation UMTS mobile phones, which will carry multimedia services such as online shopping and video images.

A company spokesman said Toshiba chose Europe as the base for it's research and development centre because, "It's very advanced for telecoms".

He added: "We chose Bristol in particular because Professor Joseph McGeehan, the head of communications research at the university, has very good knowledge of telecoms."

Elaine Axby, analyst at Schema, said: "The UK is seen as being the driving force behind UMTS technology in Europe. The UK government has played a large part in that - wanting to put UKplc at the vanguard of telecoms."

She added: "This is a good thing for Europe as it will increase competition for other European companies such as Nokia and Ericsson. This will generally help the market develop, and if it is going to develop into the mass market multimedia area it needs a player like Toshiba."

The company believes it is in a good position to take hold of the UMTS market as it already has a number of products using digital technology, combined with a good semiconductor division. Toshiba claims the handsets will be available within three years, however, Axby says the UK won't have a network up and running until 2002, and the rest of Europe will follow a few years after.

Toshiba confirmed that it will be making technology comply with European and Asian standards once they are finalised.