Technology: Dead on Arrival?
01 April 2002
Is gprs dead? As the launch of 3g networks
looms, gprs has so far been distinguished by its
absence. Does this interim technology really
have a role to play in the migration to next
generation mobile data, or is it a problem
instead of a solution? As Nathalie Raffray
discovers, if gprs is not to be another wap, it
needs to find its place.
GPRS - the stepping stone between the voice-dominated
world of gsm and the data-intensive 3g - appears to be
sinking fast. Many are beginning to question whether it
has a future. And after the wap debacle, and the 3g
licence millstones, any idea that gprs will fail to live up to
expectations is the last thing that the world's embattled
mobile operators need.
But while gprs networking equipment has been available
for two years or more, handsets have been in very short
supply. Combined with a lack of frequency in many
dense areas like city centres, it has left operators with no
option but to delay widespread service rollout.
The question is, will it be worth continuing gprs
development when 3g could be just around the corner?
The answer is yes and no. Yes it's worth pursuing, but no
it may not have mass market appeal. "Gprs has so far
been a failure," insists Phi Giang, an independent analyst
in Australia.
"Time delays for service requests are too long, data
speeds in the most optimistic conditions are slow to
moderate while terminals are small and cumbersome and
have not been designed to handle software services."
With plans for early launches of third generation
networks this year scuppered, partly because of handset
issues again, in this case the lack of dual mode phones,
gprs may have a stay of execution. And if deployed
widely, it could be a crucial testing ground for 3g
applications.
"Gprs is a lot of warnings of what's coming with 3g," says
James Storey, chief technology officer of TCSI, a
developer of operations and management applications.
"Operators would have liked to have jumped straight to
3g, but now that it isn't rolling out for a while, there's a
window for gprs, which currently is still not up to speed."
Just how big this window is depends on which side of the
fence they sit.
"Everybody has been talking down 3g which makes the
window bigger for 2.5g," argues Graham Wright, senior
global mobility marketing manager at Lucent. "Gprs does
have legs but a few enabling technologies and market
conditions will need to come on stream before you see
the commitment of operators. They only get one go at this
so they've got to get it right.
They don't want another wap."
The failure of wap has put the fear of god into many
operators. Not surprising given that the average consumer
equates it with failure. And while some argue that wap is
more suited to the always-on qualities of gprs and so
must inevitably be a success it is based on a level of
naivety that fails to take into account the public's
memory. Will they really want to revisit the wap disaster
and buy a new phone to do so? Hardly.
Gprs handsets have already been in short supply for too
long. Ericsson and Motorola are still the only ones to
make a big push in gprs. But the handset scarcity may
also have disguised a lack of desire among the public for
more expensive gadgets, gizmos with the distinct
probability of more failed expectations.
Small, stylish, practical and at least slightly fashionable
are the qualities most people still seem to want from their
mobiles. But handset manufacturers are generally
ignoring what their customers really want and are
insisting on adding gprs, pushing up the handset price so
that new phones are over priced for voice usage, and yet
still too small for effective use of yet to be proved data
applications.
And all at a time when mobile phone sales have already
slumped as, unlike a couple of years ago, consumers can
see no need or advantage in upgrading their old handsets.
Even those few that have been enticed to move to gprs
handsets are likely to see their investment superseded in
2003 and 2004 by the delayed launch of 3g. Despite
lauding the potential success of gprs, Lucent's Wright
himself is wary. "I can't think of any reason today why
someone will go out and buy a gprs handset, but with
mms, perhaps that will be a stimulus." And this is exactly
what exactly many operators are hoping, rather
optimistically, could be their salvation. Sms was and
remains the 'killer application' of gsm data. The search for
a new killer app to prop up gprs means that desperate
operators are hoping that multimedia mobile messaging
will be a messiah.
"(Operators) expect mms to be the saviour of gprs," says
TCSI's Storey.
"Sms is a wild success but how do we take that to the
next step? To take a photo and send it you need the data
rates of a 3g system. Maybe it's possible mms takes off
like that but it's a big bet that it'll recoup losses."
The other hope is that out of the many hundreds of
application developers working on new gprs applications
throughout the mobile world, one or two will actually
stumble across the kind of services that can actually make
a positive difference to the appeal of 2.5g. But for many
operators 2.5g services will just be a testing ground for
the big 3g game ahead.
CAN IMODE SAVE THE DAY?
The arrival of imode in Europe, over gprs, could be the
best testing ground. Last month (March) Germany's
E-plus, a subsidiary of KPN Mobile, claimed its
gprs-based imode service was already up and running.
KPN says it will follow up with a launch in its home
market of the Netherlands in the middle of this month
while Belgium is due to follow in June.
Although the basic service itself isn't expensive at $3 a
month, E-Plus customers will need to upgrade to a NEC
Imode handset for around $220. "Operators are not ready
for this market in general," says Ulf Beyschlag, European
marketing director for Metasolv. "In 3g, what are the
applications justifying these investments? If operators are
basing applications on gprs they might succeed. The
potential of gprs has not been touched yet."
One operator hoping for a degree of gprs success is
Orange UK. It launched its first packet data services to the
corporate sector in February and claims it will be
targeting consumers later this year. "We wanted to get two
things right. The applications and getting the service wrap
right," says Cynthia Gordon, marketing director for
business solutions at Orange.
"Corporates will have access to their intranet and office
emails. It's critical to have that application in place. It's
important to drive usage, for customers to understand the
benefits of data now. It's not a revolution, it's an
evolution and gprs will be around for a lot longer than
people expect it to be. And it will be used when
subscribers aren't in a 3g coverage area."
Others also insist that gprs has more than just a stopgap
future. "It's wrong to assume that 3g is just around the
corner," says Katrina Bond, an analyst at Analysys. "And
3g's launch doesn't necessarily mean the network will be
throughout an entire country." Even the Umts Forum
admits that 3g will not be immediately pervasive. "By
2010 less than one in three will be 3g users," admits
Bernd Eylert, chairman of the forum. "Two out of three
will be using gsm and gprs so 2.5g will have a relevance."
In some cities, 3g will make sense, whatever the
limitations of the service.
It offers a whole new tranche of spectrum which is
currently in short supply in the densest markets. "Mobile
operators should concentrate on improving existing
network services and qualities and maximise the return
from existing investments," insists analyst Giang.
"How many voice calls are operators willing not to
support so that they can support someone downloading a
Powerpoint file?" asks John Wick, manager of
technology and architecture strategy at TSI, a US based
provider of wireless products and services. "Operators
are still concerned with protecting their voice revenues,
and at the same time they want people to adjust to data.
Many operators are looking at wireless lans and how that
will effect the timing of 3g."
And as the gprs advocated point out, while meaningful 3g
services launch properly next year, mass take-up is not
expect for another decade. So perhaps gprs will become a
useful fill-in technology for data on the move when
customers are not in a wireless lan hotspot.
In practice, gprs appears mostly to be a guinea pig
technology. Pricing, roaming and applications will all be
experimented with. "In principle you could bypass gprs
deployment," says Jeremy Green, an analyst at Ovum.
"But it would be silly to go straight to 3g. All the business
issues that apply to 3g also apply to gprs. Take billing for
example. Gprs ought to be the testing ground for this type
of stuff. Everything's taking much longer than originally
thought because of unrealistic expectations in the first
place."
WHO NEEDS 3G?
And just maybe a decent gprs service could be an
attractive competitor.
France's Bouygues Telecom is one of the few major
mobile operators to have opted out of 3g and is now
negotiating with NTT Docomo to launch an imode
service. For 3g licence winners, gprs could also have an
important role to play in educating consumers in what
mobile data has to offer - but with both positive and
negative implications. "Gprs will have a complimentary
role to play," says the umts forum's Eylert. "But it won't
have the same concept, speed and capacity that 3g will so
it is still necessary to move to 3g"
ROAM FREE
Another factor that has so far inhibited gprs' growth has
been the lack of international roaming. Where subscribers
now enjoy a great deal of freedom with gsm, the
difficulty in harmonising or standardising gprs
applications from country to country takes roaming back
to square one.
To save time and money forming individual roaming
agreements between operators, many are now using gprs
roaming exchanges (grx) as a hub. This forces
interconnect standards upon each operator and highlights
the need to develop applications that can be used
anywhere in the gprs world. But it will be sometime
before all grx's are harmonised and standardised with
each other so that mobile data applications can be totally
global. |
