Moldovan mobile operators may take out licenses for third-generation (3G) telephony services simply upon request, without having to win a qualification contest, Sergiu Satnic, the director of the National IT & Electronic Communication Agency, told a news conference on Thursday. 3G telephony has the capacity to transfer two types of information at the same time, voice (a regular phone call) and non-voice, like data transfer, including email, instant messages, and web browsing. Licenses will be awarded for a period of 15 years, and may be renewed as stipulated by specific laws. The fee for taking out such a license is $8 million. 3G license holders will be obliged to launch services until 1 August 2009. Otherwise the license will be withdrawn. Towards the first year of activity from the launch of the services, the license holder shall provide 3G network coverage in the municipalities of Balti and Chisinau, and in the second year of activity in the municipality of Comrat, in the towns of Cahul, Orhei, Ungheni and Soroca, and in the third year in the remaining 29 major towns. After three years of activity under the license, the holder must cover entire Moldova if the market demands require it. Experts say 3rd generation mobile telephony offers voice-based services at much higher standards than the GSM technology and improves the quality of data transfer, which enables high-standards videotelephony, mobile TV, fast access to Internet, and web browsing. 3G mobile phones can transfer data at speeds exceeding by 40 times those used by 2G and 2.5G phones. The shift to the new technology will not affect subscribers and the charges will not rise, Satnic assured. The only condition for enjoying the benefits of the 3G telephony will be to own phones that support it, their prices starting at €100. The first commercial launch of 3G was in Japan on October 1, 2001. By June 2007 the 200 millionth 3G subscriber had been connected. Out of 3 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide this is only 6.7%.