Ericsson and Bitè GSM have been close partners since the operator was established in 1995. Since then, the partnership has been extended four times with new contracts. Rimas Kalvaitis, director of marketing and sales for Ericsson Lithuania, says he is proud to support an operator that strives to be first with the latest technology. He says there are many interesting aspects of working with operators in small and developing markets.

"Operators in these markets are building from scratch and have been able to start off with the latest equipment from the very beginning," Kalvaitis explains. "They don't need to upgrade a lot of legacy equipment, which makes them very agile and quick to adapt to new technology."

Many small operators are part of larger corporations; Bitè GSM is fully owned by Danish operator TDC. Kalvaitis says big operators can try out new technologies and services on the smaller, developing markets. "In the same way, Ericsson can apply experience gained from smaller markets to its dealings with bigger customers."

Bitè GSM with a customer base of about 500,000. is one of three mobile operators in Lithuania. Lithuania has a population of about 3.5 million and mobile penetration of about 55 percent.