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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Biddle who wrote (31753)	1/26/2003 3:04:19 PM
From: John Biddle	Respond to of 197225

Another excerpt from the European Commission report: 3G as an Open Service Environment 3G service provision is likely to depart radically from the model prevailing presently with a one-to-one relationship between mobile operators and their customers. In 3G, the origin of large parts of the service profile accessible by a customer is no longer necessarily or fully controlled by the operator. Innovative applications or specific content will need to be accessible even when originating outside of the network controlled by an operator and across different networks. This raises the issue of ensuring that the 3G platform accommodates an open mobile services environment. Experts expect significant difficulties if closed proprietary terminal and network configurations prevail. The notion of openness goes beyond 3G in the light of converging service environments (e.g. PC applications running on mobile handsets). Openness in this context will be a key factor facilitating convergence. For 3G, openness needs to be ensured at different levels. For instance, application developers need to take into account the capability of individual handsets designed by a variety of manufacturers. Varying operating systems used by terminals, the choice of browsers and the lack of standardisation of Java-enabled terminals are inter-alia potential obstacles to the design of applications which run on a large handset population or for the possibility of processing specific content. It is of key importance that interface specifications are made open and transparent to minimise these obstacles. At network level, the difficulty arises from the fact that part of the intelligence needed to support sophisticated applications is network resident. This bears a risk that proprietary network architectures become stumbling blocks for application developers. The Commission could observe that the issue has been recognised by industry and that efforts are under way to find solutions. The Commission is also encouraged by the standardisation activities currently undertaken in 3GPP towards establishing the basis for an open service access. Several initiatives, such as the Open Mobile Architecture (OMA), have been launched by the manufacturing industry, and their impact will depend on the support of the vendor community at large and in particular of operators. In this context, the Commission also noted the M-Service initiative launched by the GSM Association. Both efforts bear a great potential of synergy. The move of 3G towards an internet-based network approach will facilitate maintaining the open service characteristic, also in view of 3G integrating the family of alternative wireless or fixed access platforms which should characterise the full deployment of the Information Society. This will be subject to a separate report by the Commission, as requested by the Barcelona European Council. The Commission will closely monitor the evolution of the value chain surrounding 3G services, and consider action if the evolution of 3G towards an open and competitive service environment would be threatened by proprietary solutions chosen by individual players. In this context, the Commission will consider the role of all involved parties, including those feeding into the mobile sector through content or application offers. ----- Though I am completely against the EU mandating openness, I do think they're right that the maximization of value of 3G will be achieved only if the market is open. Sadly this is about the only thing of intelligence and in-depth understanding I saw in the whole report, and they ruined it by threatening government intervention.