A group of mobile operators have announced its intention to define widely accepted requirements for an open mobile terminal platform (OMTP). The founding members of this initiative are O2, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, SMART Communications, Telefonica Moviles, TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile), T-Mobile and Vodafone. These members will establish a new organization based in London, OMTP Limited (the OMTP group), to achieve their goals.

The OMTP group aims to define those platform requirements necessary for mobile devices to deliver openly available standardized application interfaces that will provide customers with a more consistent and improved user experience across different devices, whilst also enabling individual operators and manufacturers to customize and differentiate their offering. The OMTP group intends to achieve its goals by identifying common mobile operators' requirements, with the aim of establishing an open framework for mobile device manufacturers and associated software and hardware suppliers to develop open mobile terminal platform compliant products. The OMTP group aims to use existing standards, where they exist, and to further encourage the development of standards by presenting OMTP requirements.

As a technology neutral organization, all technology vendors will be free to contribute to and support OMTP requirements and to provide OMTP compliant products. The OMTP group is an open association, with membership or participation available to organizations wanting to adopt OMTP requirements, to assist the process of achieving the OMTP group's goals or simply to follow the latest efforts and results of the OMTP group.

The following companies have expressed their intent to join the OMTP group: Amena, Hutchinson/3, KPN, One Austria, SFR and Telenor.

Mobile operators, mobile device manufacturers, software and hardware suppliers interested in participating in the OMTP group can find more information on the OMTP group's website.

O2 has 100% ownership of mobile network operators in three countries -- the UK, Germany and Ireland -- as well as leading mobile Internet portal business.

NTT DoCoMo provides a wide variety of leading-edge mobile multimedia services.

Orange provides a broad range of personal communications services, including Orange GSM1800 services and other digital cellular telephone services.

SMART Communications is the Philippines' leading wireless services provider with 15 million subscribers on its GSM network.

TIM (Telecom Italia Group) is the leading Italian mobile operator with 26.1 million lines.

Telefonica Moviles is one of the world's largest mobile operators and the leading cellular company in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking markets.

T-Mobile International is one of the world's leading companies in mobile communications.

Vodafone is the world's largest mobile community with 133.4 million proportionate customers, equity interests in 26 countries and Partner Networks in a further 13 countries.