re: Vodafone 3G Handsets
Slacker,
<< Pretty interesting....especially since there has been very little about Vodafone and Nokia working together on 3G. >>
Vodafone has finally announced that it is putting back service launch until sometime next year. The company blames its two main handset manufacturer's, Nokia and Motorola, for the delay. It is complaining vociferously, and very publicly, that the handsets simply don't work anywhere near as well as they should do and there remain enormous problems in hand-off software.
>> 3G In Europe: Late And Getting Later By The Day
Martyn Warwick
Editorial
Telecom.com
August ??, 2002
[?? Not sure when written. It's been posted for several weeks]
telecomtv.com
It didn't take long. Last week, Orange got the ball rolling when it asked the Swedish telecoms regulator to sanction a three-year delay to the company's legal obligation to roll out 3G mobile services. Now, as expected, other operators are queuing up to beg for relaxations in the terms of their 3G licenses.
We are witnessing the early groundswell of what is likely to become a tidal wave of delays in the provision of European 3G networks and systems - and a tacit admission by 3G licence holders that they got the whole thing wrong.
Now mmO2, the mobile operator spun out of British Telecom last year, is lobbying the German regulator for permission to change the terms of its licence agreement which requires that it must build a 3G network covering 25% of the German population by December 2003 and must extend that to ensure 50% population coverage by 2005.
In their bids to gain the award of a 3G franchise, then seen and expected by operators to be a licence to print money, a lot of carriers made wildly optimistic claims about their abilities to get 3G networks, services and applications up and running to remarkably tight deadlines. Some are already admitting that they can't do it and, now that the floodgates are open, others will soon be forcing their way through, blaming anything and everything for their failure except themselves and their overweening ambitions. This week's news is a very real setback for 3G, for the operators, for the telecoms manufacturers and for European business.
Orange was the prime mover in Sweden and also brought the issue of the construction of 3G networks in Germany to the top of the agenda. There, Orange has mothballed its 3G plans whilst its struggling and debt-laden parent, France Telecom, tries to put its house in order and reach settlement in its ongoing dispute with Mobilcom.
Then, last month, Telefonica of Spain and Sonera of Finland announced the are scrapping of plans jointly to develop a German 3G network. Indeed, Telefonica has made it plain that it will abandon its involvement in any and all other European 3G projects outside of Spain, will pull back to its home market and concentrate export efforts in and on Latin America.
MmO2 is under considerable pressure to cut its burgeoning losses in Germany where it is the fourth operator in a very overcrowded market dominated by two operators, Vodafone and T-Mobile, that between them already have a tight grip on 80% of the country's mobile subscriber base.
It is believed that mmO2 would dearly like to get out of the German market altogether but, to date, has felt bound to persevere with a lost cause simply to be seen not to be reneging on the the terms of its licence.
Now though, the company is taking advantage of the increasingly fluid and muddy state of the market and industry and is putting pressure on the German regulator either to ensure that all the country's 3G licence holders are either held, individually and collectively, to the exact terms of those licenses, or to permit significant easing of them to all that might request such treatment.
There are persistent rumours that Germany's third-operator, E-Plus is also requesting a period of grace.
In 2000, at the height of the telecoms boom, the German government made 48 billion euro from the sale six 3G licences. Across Europe as a whole, operators put themselves into massive debt and spent in excess of 122 billion euro on licences that have become financial albatrosses around their corporate necks.
Since those heady days the industry has entered its worst recession in its century-long history and 3G has proved to be very difficult to do both in terms of technology and in selling it to subscribers. Handset delays, software troubles and declining customer demand have combined to make the licence deadlines impossible to meet.
Meanwhile, in the UK, Vodafone is postponing the marketing of its 3G services. The operator had previously insisted that it would launch 3G in Britain, Germany and Spain in the second half of the year.
It's already August and with still no sign of any of the promised services anywhere on the horizon, Vodafone has finally announced that it is putting back service launch until sometime next year.
The company blames its two main handset manufacturer's, Nokia and Motorola, for the delay. It is complaining vociferously, and very publicly, that the handsets simply don't work anywhere near as well as they should do and there remain enormous problems in hand-off software.
Now that the truth is slowly leaking out, more delays in the provision of European 3G services are all but guaranteed. Watch out also for the increasing likelihood of consolidation in the market, probably starting in Scandinavia, Germany or the UK but then spreading out across the continent like a nasty rash. Because that's what most would-be 3G operators have been, over-optimistic, over-confident and just plain rash. They can't fulfil the promises they made, and it's further damaging an already badly damaged industry. <<
- Eric - |
