US embraces secure mobile technology it cannot use

A German company has launched a military-grade secure mobile in the US - the one country where it will not yet work, according to reports.

Rohde & Schwarz, a telecom and testing equipment maker from Munich gained the rights to the phone, and other encryption technology, when it took over a division of Siemens at the beginning of May.

It now says it has sold a few hundred of the modified S35i Siemens mobile to private and government customers, as well as 1,500 fixed line models to the German military. Prices of $3,000 per handset have been quoted.

The TopSec phone uses a combination of 1,024-bit encryption for authentication and 128-bit encryption for data transfer. But it operates only on GSM standard networks, which makes it unusable in large areas of the US.

Officials in the parent company could not comment on the US launch.