§ The Earl of Northeskasked Her Majesty's Government:
How they respond to the recent speech of Hans Geyer, vice-president of Intel, to the GSM World Congress suggesting that, because of the level of debt provoked by investment in the unproven technology of 3G, the telecoms industry may be "heading for bankruptcy". [HL1018]
§ Lord Sainsbury of TurvilleThe Government do not believe that the recent difficulties of the 3G sector can be ascribed to a single cause or that the difficulties in this sector are single-handedly responsible for the worldwide downturn in information technology and electronic communications (ITEC) stocks. The Government have every confidence that 3G will be rolled out successfully. More widely, given the central role of telecommunications in modern life, it is hard to see how the whole sector could be "heading for bankruptcy".