Youth Council gives its view of communication services
 Life without a mobile is unthinkable for members of the TeliaSonera International Youth Council. "It makes me feel a part of society and means a lot for me in my contacts with family and friends", says Ina Plesca, a 19 year old from Moldova. Ina is one of the members of the Youth Council, which held its third meeting in Oslo on 9 November.
All members from the six countries were new and all of them described their home markets, favourite services, and what they wanted more of in terms of communications.
 Mobile services such as news, weather, horoscopes, text messaging, e-mail, and telephony are all services that everyone uses but they have lots of ideas about developments, everything from sending movie shorts and sending each other call time when someone’s prepaid card runs low to different types of updates from a website. And, as always, price is very important for young people.
"I would like to see prices reduced the more I use services", says Ina Plesca. "Moldcell has the best prices at home but is also seen by customers as a good company with useful services. Moldcell’s involvement in society with active sponsoring is also appreciated by many".
The next time the International Youth Council meets, the participants will test services, many of which through SurfPort, and will explain what they like the most, what they are missing, and what they can live without. No doubt they’ll have new ideas about these even if the most used services are still telephony and text messaging.
 Essay on new services
Edgaras Figurinas, 16 years old, is from Lithuania and he was chosen for the Youth Council through an essay competition organised by Omnitel. The essay was about how more Lithuanians could learn to use the Internet. Personally, though, his favourite service is a voice service. "Omnitel Birthday is sent to all Omnitel customers and it makes you happy" he says. "On your birthday morning, a text message arrives announcing that you can call family and friends for free on your birthday in Omnitel's network".
New ideas
The discussion forum provides an open dialogue between the youth and representatives from TeliaSonera. Services and communication habits from different markets give new ideas that TeliaSonera can take advantage of.
"The Youth Council is one of several ongoing activities at TeliaSonera with the purpose of guiding us in our work to develop services that young customers really want. We see this as one component in our strategic focus to involve customers early on in the service development process. This is one example where we can proactively develop services which are easy to understand, easy to buy and easy to use", says Anders Igel.
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