re: Technology Push - 1xEV-DO "Trials" at Verizon
“I'll be honest: I don't know what the market demand will be for the products and services offered with 3G.... One of the things we'll be looking at is whether the customer is willing to pay and what the threshold is, assuming the technology is where we think it is. I would underscore that the business case needs to be cleared before we launch.” - Bill Stone, Verizon Wireless -
"The big question, is how much customers will be prepared to pay." - David Berndt, Yankee Group -
>> Demand for Cdma 2000 EV-DO Unsure Says Verizon
Elizabeth Biddlecombe
Total Telecom
06 April 2002
Consumer Appetite To Be Scrutinized In Upcoming Trials
The Washington Post ran a story Friday quoting the executive director of network strategy at the largest mobile operator in the U.S., saying that he doesn't know what demand will be like for 3G services.
“I'll be honest: I don't know what the market demand will be for the products and services offered with 3G,” Verizon Wireless' Bill Stone was reported as saying.
What the Post story didn't make clear was that Stone was talking about CDMA 2000 1X EV-DO, the second step in Qualcomm's CDMA 2000 mobile data upgrade after 1X RTT. EV-DO (1X evolution-data optimized) is said to provide peak data rate of 2.4 Mbps on one 1.25 MHz CDMA carrier.
Verizon Wireless announced at CTIA that it will be conducting two EV-DO trials in the U.S. this year: the first is to take place in April in Washington DC, the second in June in San Diego. According to Jeffrey Nelson, Stone's words echo company doctrine on the data upgrade. “One of the things we'll be looking at is whether the customer is willing to pay and what the threshold is, assuming the technology is where we think it is. I would underscore that the business case needs to be cleared before we launch.”
Aside from weighing up implementation costs against customer enthusiasm, the trial, which will feature a mixture of company employees and some current enterprise customers, will look at the technology in action. Handoffs between the two test cell sites and the speed of real life applications will also be monitored.
Verizon could theoretically launch CDMA 1X EV-DO as early as 2003 provided business and technology factors are satisfactory. One operator who has already launched the technology is Korea's SK Telecom, which introduced it in January. It is only available there for PCMCIA cards at present.
With regard to the Verizon's 1XRTT service which was launched in January and announced in 13 more cities last week, Jeffrey Nelson wouldn't give specifics of uptake, nor discuss the level of data usage in general though he said, “there is not a question about the customer's willingness to pay.”
However he also implied that customer demand for 1X wasn't necessarily crucial since, “there are voice capacity benefits that translate into monetary savings”
According to Yankee Group research quoted by the Post, US$26 billion to $30 billion will be spent by U.S. carriers to upgrade their networks, not including the cost of spectrum. The “big question” said David Berndt, director at the Yankee Group, is how much customers will be prepared to pay. <<
- Eric - |
