Steven - inre How far is the US behind Europe in digital data transmission for cell phones:
First, I take the NYT article with a grain of salt:
1) The conflicting standards "have slowed things down considerably," said Mark Lowenstein, an analyst at the Yankee Group, a research firm in Boston. This is the oft touted refrain, and while it does play a part, it is massively overblown. Europe is ahead not just because they have one standard (after all, when roaming do you really care that all four service providers in your area are your standard? No, you just care that at least one is - at least until Maurice's world comes to pass, and you can get bids from the various providers.) Europe also has calling party pays, they have a much higher population density (making seamless infrastructure buildout and upgrade substantially cheaper), their wired phones have higher rates than the US, ... .
2) The United States also faces a more difficult chore in getting from here to there. The American carriers do not have a middle-term technology comparable to GPRS in Europe, and the third-generation services are not expected to reach the market for a few years.
Huh? This is just completely incorrect. NA-TDMA and GSM-1900 can both upgrade to GPRS just as Europe can and of course CDMAOne will have the cheapest upgrade to middle-term of any extant technology.
Thus, in total, I would take the NYT article with a large grain of salt. While it is true that they are ahead in the number of text messages sent, I view this purely as a function of the fact that their digital cell phone penetration rate is much higher than the US for many of the reasons given above (text messaging is largely a cell phone to cell phone technology. How often do you, in the US, call cell phone to cell phone? Not too often?) . It isn't about technology. Thus, once the US penetration rate is closer to Europe's, I would expect us to catch up, and in fact surpass them, as we move to 3g with more ease (CDMAOne to CDMA-2000 vs GSM to W-CDMA) than they do.
Clark |
