Chaz,
Thanks for those views, and yes, I too have read those same releases as you have. At the same time I can also recall some very similar early prognostications in the past from other sectors, only to leave users hanging for an additional five years and more. Pick a technology, any technology. The results are usually the same. As with many other technologies, the problems 3G may face may not be in the technology at all. Instead, it could very simply be in its implementation.
Let's assume that we do see 3G very soon. Say, within the next year. Or at least sooner than my earlier post suggested. Hang in there with me, if that's the case, and help me explore a few issues and some questions that I have. I didn't get into these in detail in my earlier post, except to state that there would be delays, very much like those at the "implementation" level that ATM and other new technologies faced, while attempting to pick up market share.
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Assuming that pricing for 3G services is attractive (is it? what will the pricing structure look like to the average Joe Schmoe end user? would someone post some early views on this?), how will the 3G wireless carriers attract new Internet Access subscribers who refuse to let go of their email identities? Pardon me if this has been covered before on one of the other threads, but I haven't seen it.
Will the wireless carriers who support 3G act as go-betweens with extant ISPs and support them on this issue? Will they perform email address translations like the local number portability feature that ILECs and CLECs must perform?
Let's say that 3G goes full blown and becomes available next month. What then are the options with regards to my choice of ISPs? Will wireless carriers be cutting deals with existing ISPs to allow them to use their air links as ordinary access channels just like the RBOCs do with dialups? Or will the wireless carriers be instituting their own brand of ISP presence, inclusive of email addresses and their own portals?
Do the wireless carriers now introduce themselves as my first web page upon my logging on? Or can I get cut through to my ISP of choice immediately upon login? Or, because it's an always on service, are those points moot altogether?
Will we see a re-enactment in this space of what is now going on over in the Cablemodem area w/r/t T and ATHM versus AOL and the others? Can I expect to be spammed, in other words, by yet another group of lobbying activists calling for open wireless support?
While roaming, will one be able to use their regular ISP account, as they would their roaming voice service? If they can't do this while they are on the road, can they go in through a dialup proxy server somewhere, and get into their same account structures?
Although I have brought up the open wireless conflict possibility in the past, I've not explored the remainder of these issues because up until now they seemed premature. And I don't have a stand on them one way or the other, in fact. But if their time to market is as imminent as you and others around these boards seem to suggest, then maybe these implementation level issues are not that premature, at all.
Of course, maybe the answers to these questions are as clear as day, and I simply can't see them.
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I happen to put more credence in the fundamentals behind 3G technologies and the efforts which are taking place around the world than my messages would convey, but I still will not bet the farm on its unveiling and early stage successes with regard to penetrations anytime soon, at least now where all of its key features are concerned. And I do believe that some of the issues I've raised are going to be formidable ones for the carriers who adopt it as an access platform. If anyone has the answers to these questions, I'd appreciate your posting them. I hope I'm wrong about most of these, but I don't think so.
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
