Europe's far ahead in 3G
individual.com
April 17, 2001
Malcolm Penn
The first seeds of the communications revolution
were planted back in the 19th century, and Europe
has played a key role in its worldwide development.
One-hundred-and-fifty years later, in the transition
to wireless, it is simply no contest, with Europe way
out in front of the United States in user acceptance.
Standards played a key part here, and the decision
to adopt the uniform GSM standard, allowing mobile
phones to be used throughout the region, helped to
drive widespread acceptance of wireless.
The presence of Ericsson in Sweden and Nokia in
Finland has served as a stimulus for half of
Sweden's population of 9 million and 85 percent of
Finland's 2.4 million households to use cell phones
as their de facto method of communication.
When you take into account wireless usage tied to
the Internet, the disparity between Europe and the
United States is even greater, with about 30 million
wireless handsets currently equipped with
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) for Internet
access. While WAP content has proved
disappointing-called "Wrong Approach to
Portability" in some circles-this should not be
viewed as a vote of no confidence in wireless data
services.
To the contrary, given the impending launch of the
GPRS (2.5G) and 3G packet data services, I
expected that figure to increase more than 10
times, to 300 million, by 2005. In contrast, only 90
million Americans have cellular handsets, with less
than 1 percent Internet-enabled.
The need for improved mobile phones and 3G
technology is driven by an increasingly mobile
lifestyle, and operators are encouraged by the
rapid customer acceptance of the simple text
message services, especially by teen-aged
consumers. Full WAP services based on the
GSM-GPRS service will be available to
businesses, as early adopters, this spring, with
domestic consumer use targeted for later this year.
A major point in 3G's favor is that the service
software layer is open to third parties, allowing
unconstrained third-party development, hopefully
spawning the elusive wireless killer applications.
But perhaps the most powerful argument in favor of
early 3G adoption is that of self-preservation. Not
only have the operating companies spent $200
billion on European spectrum, but the world's
basestation, handset, software and semiconductor
companies also all depend on 3G's success for
their future financial well-being.
MALCOLM PENN IS THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER OF INDUSTRY ANALYST FUTURE
HORIZONS (SEVENOAKS, ENGLAND). HE CAN
BE CONTACTED AT
WWW.FUTUREHORIZONS.COM.
eetimes.com
Copyright c 2001 CMP Media LLC
By Malcolm Penn |
