Ahead of its planned launch next month, the new venture between Nokia and Siemens presented a product roadmap on the opening day of the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona that shows a strong focus on networking technologies based on the Internet Protocol.

Admitting that the mobile phone industry may have over-hyped its 3G (third-generation) technology and missed the opportunity to connect with the world of IP, Simon Beresford-Wylie, designated chief executive of Nokia Siemens Networks, said at a news conference that "there is only one Internet and I think we misunderstood this as a sector."

Before joining Nokia, Beresford-Wylie was CEO of the Indian mobile operator Modi Telstra.

The joint venture between the former German and Finnish rivals will have a combined customer base of around 600 companies, with half of them mobile operators and the other half fixed-line operators, according to Beresford-Wylie.

The launch of the new company has been pushed back a couple of times, as the result of a corruption probe against executives at Siemens' networking division over accusations of bribes offered to secure business.

Beresford-Wylie expects the venture to launch next month. "We were ready and we still are ready to roll on day one," he said.

The decision to merge networking operations was prompted by consolidation in the sector, in particular the launch of Alcatel-Lucent.

Opportunity abounds, according to Beresford-Wylie. The number of people connected to the Internet with broadband connections -- both wireless and wireline -- will increase from 2.5 billion in 2006 to 5 billion in 2015, he said.

The CEO designate also predicted that the rise of HDTV (high-definition television) and IPTV (Internet Protocol television) would lead to a hundred-fold increase in data traffic by 2015, ballooning at a rate of between 60 percent every year. These services will create demand for gigabyte-per-second connections for individual users.

Nokia Siemens Networks will provide a range of products including mobile WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiplex Access) and wireless WiMAX infrastructure systems, broadband access and, in particular, IP technology.

But Beresford-Wylie was quick to point out that Nokia Siemens Networks intends to move away from being a "box provider" to a supplier of "managed solutions." The company's service portfolio will include applications and content management as well as consulting and systems integration.