Ringing Up Changes In Mobiles
Australian Financial Review
December 30, 2002 Monday
David Crowe
KEY POINTS
* The new breed of smartphone merges the computer with the phone, throwing in other gadgetry.
* Phone companies can now count on faster network speeds to succeed.
* Telstra's launch of Kyocera 7135 has turned up the heat on others.
Judging by the new rivalry looming in the mobile phone business, today's phones just aren't smart enough. Think picture messages and amusing ring tones are clever? Think again. The new breed of smartphone is about to shake up the mobile market by merging the computer with the phone, while throwing in other gadgetry like music players and games.
Humbled by previous failures with the smartphone idea, the phone companies are determined to win over customers. This time, they have one big advantage: much faster network speeds that make it feasible to use a phone to surf the web or run a computer application.
That means reading the news from your favourite website on the bus, checking email on the road and logging onto the office system when you are travelling.
Telstra lobbed the latest smartphone into the market in late December by introducing the Kyocera 7135 into Telstra shops. That turns up the heat on other devices like the O2 xda, the Handspring Treo and older units like Nokia's 9210 Communicator and Sony Ericsson's 380s.
Customers, though, won't just be choosing between rival gadgets. They'll also be participating in the grandest tussle of the global mobile phone business: the choice between three different kinds of mobile network. The decision has big implications for access speeds, geographic coverage and the actual device to be used. The three choices are:The 3G network being built by Hutchison Telecoms and expected to start offering commercial services in 2003 under the brand name "3". Hutchison is promising phones with the power to run business applications and even perform video-conferencing. At its best, 3G could offer bandwidth of 384 kilobits per second (kbps).An upgrade to today's GSM networks called general packet radio service, or GPRS, which speeds up the bandwidth of the network from 9.6kbps to something like 40kbps for functions like email and web surfing. This is the most popular option in Australia to date, given that many new phones come with GPRS as a standard feature.Telstra's CDMA (code division multiple access) network, which is now being boosted by single carrier radio transmission technology, also known as 1xRTT, to offer download speeds of up to 72kbps.
By launching the Kyocera 7135 in its stores, Telstra is throwing a little more weight behind 1xRTT to follow its formal launch of the service in early December. Built like a standard flip phone, the 7135 folds out to reveal a colour screen and a Palm operating system that complements its standard keypad. Although the screen is small, it is capable of displaying web pages and emails as well as offering the calendar and contacts functions of the Palm. Unlike earlier phones, it can view standard web pages rather than being restricted to pages created using WAP, the wireless access protocol.
Fitted with a battery about twice the size of those that come with typical mobile phones, the 7135 has 3.5 hours of talk time and 160 hours of standby time. It could support five hours of constant use of the Palm functions such as web browsing. It costs $1,599.
A telecommunications analyst at Gartner, Nick Ingelbrecht, said smartphones such as those Australia was just starting to see had been available on networks in Japan and Korea for some time.
"This is the most compelling aspect of the 1xRTT story the fact that the Koreans and Japanese vendors have been streets ahead in producing attractive, powerful devices," he said.
The O2 xda, heavily marketed by Telstra in recent weeks, takes a different approach. The xda is more akin to a hand-held computer with phone functionality, lacking a phone keypad and instead using a stylus and touch-screen to operate the PocketPC operating system from Microsoft.
The $1,699 xda connects to a GPRS service using the same kind of SIM card used with mobile phones.
Another contender, due early in 2003, will be the Palm Tungsten W, which will offer GPRS and phone features to compete directly with the xda. Sony Ericsson also has a smartphone, the P800, due in 2003, though its release has been delayed in recent months.
Luke Solyom, an analyst at research company Inform Group, said the smartphones were selling in small volumes already.
"Considering the wow factor as well as the tangible benefits, I can cautiously say I see them being warm sellers into the corporate sector," Mr Solyom said. The likely winner, he said, would be devices built around the PocketPC operating system favoured by business.
"This sector is graduating towards Windows-based product over Palm. The current sales ratio of Windows to Palm in the corporate market is 2:1 so the xda and other Windows-based products should invariably outsell the Kyocera, the Treo and the soon to be released Palm Tungsten W products by this margin."
Still, there are other options altogether. The most likely alternative to a smartphone remains the use of separate hand-held computers and mobile phones, linked so that the hand held can connect to the internet through the phone.
In this category, Bluetooth becomes a key feature because it connects the two devices over a short-range wireless link. A customer could use the hand held to surf the web while the phone is in his or her pocket.
So instead of choosing smartphones in 2003, some customers will be looking for two products: GSM phones with business-grade functions like Bluetooth, GPRS and tri-band coverage (an essential feature for global roaming, especially to the US); and hand-held computers with Bluetooth, web browsers and email applications.
That, of course, means spending more money on a better hand-held computer. A Toshiba E740BT with Bluetooth costs $1,449. A Palm Tungsten T with Bluetooth costs $1,099. Then there's the cost of the phone. |
