The Times: Tech special - The 3G battle for your phone
Third-generation mobiles promise a lot: high-speed Internet along with voice, text and video messaging. But do we want them, and will the technology ever get here? David Rowan reports
It is an inspiring vision: a mobile phone that not only gives you fast Internet access but, wherever you are in the world, acts as your guide, portable office, entertainment centre and personal shopper. One minute you could be videoconferencing with colleagues, the next downloading music or films and searching for the nearest cappuccino bar.
You can make voice calls at the local rate to friends on the other side of the world and e-mail photos or video clips to them. If you decide to join them, you can search the Web for the cheapest available flight and pay using your "electronic wallet". You might as well check the local weather while you are at it.
That, at least, is the promise of the newest mobile phone technology, which combines permanent network connections and fast data speeds to put the Internet firmly in your hand. It is known as the third generation of mobile telephony - 3G for short - because it follows today's secondgeneration digital voice networks and an intermediate stage known as 2.5G.
The third generation has taken a fair while to arrive - Japan has been the test-bed - but, within a year, 3G will start to reach Europe.
Once the promised life-changing applications arrive, 3G will come to dominate the way we live, according to research studies. The handset manufacturer Ericsson claims that, at some stage next year, there will be more mobile Internet users than fixed-line users. Analysys, a research company, predicts that within four years almost 500 million people will subscribe to 3G services and by 2010 more than a billion. According to Orange, by 2005 non-voice calls, such as video downloads, should account for a quarter of its revenue.
We have heard such optimistic predictions before, notably about the huge impact expected for Wireless Application Protocol (Wap) phones. In the event, Wap was an overhyped failure with slow connections and limited content. But the next-generation phones will offer genuine benefits. They ought to: the phone networks paid Gordon Brown £22 billion for the privilege of using the UK's radio spectrum - equivalent to almost £400 for everybody in the country.
Across Europe, 3G licences raised around £100 billion, with a similar sum needed to build the infrastructure. No wonder the highly indebted phone networks are determined to provide services we want to buy. We are bound to welcome innovations such as multimedia messaging - think of it as text-messaging with added photos or video clips - but the glorious new age will come with a price tag. It is too early to know how much we will have to spend, but handsets alone could cost a couple of hundred £initially.
Third-generation phones will be the most exciting advance in telecommunications for years. Just don't forget that there will be a price to pay.
(The Times, April 9 2002)
It is an inspiring vision: a mobile phone that not only gives you fast Internet access but, wherever you are in the world, acts as your guide, portable office, entertainment centre and personal shopper. One minute you could be videoconferencing with colleagues, the next downloading music or films and searching for the nearest cappuccino bar.
You can make voice calls at the local rate to friends on the other side of the world and e-mail photos or video clips to them. If you decide to join them, you can search the Web for the cheapest available flight and pay using your "electronic wallet". You might as well check the local weather while you are at it.
That, at least, is the promise of the newest mobile phone technology, which combines permanent network connections and fast data speeds to put the Internet firmly in your hand. It is known as the third generation of mobile telephony - 3G for short - because it follows today's secondgeneration digital voice networks and an intermediate stage known as 2.5G.
The third generation has taken a fair while to arrive - Japan has been the test-bed - but, within a year, 3G will start to reach Europe.
Once the promised life-changing applications arrive, 3G will come to dominate the way we live, according to research studies. The handset manufacturer Ericsson claims that, at some stage next year, there will be more mobile Internet users than fixed-line users. Analysys, a research company, predicts that within four years almost 500 million people will subscribe to 3G services and by 2010 more than a billion. According to Orange, by 2005 non-voice calls, such as video downloads, should account for a quarter of its revenue.
We have heard such optimistic predictions before, notably about the huge impact expected for Wireless Application Protocol (Wap) phones. In the event, Wap was an overhyped failure with slow connections and limited content. But the next-generation phones will offer genuine benefits. They ought to: the phone networks paid Gordon Brown £22 billion for the privilege of using the UK's radio spectrum - equivalent to almost £400 for everybody in the country.
Across Europe, 3G licences raised around £100 billion, with a similar sum needed to build the infrastructure. No wonder the highly indebted phone networks are determined to provide services we want to buy. We are bound to welcome innovations such as multimedia messaging - think of it as text-messaging with added photos or video clips - but the glorious new age will come with a price tag. It is too early to know how much we will have to spend, but handsets alone could cost a couple of hundred £initially.
Third-generation phones will be the most exciting advance in telecommunications for years. Just don't forget that there will be a price to pay.
(The Times, April 9 2002)
posted by David Rowan at Tuesday, April 09, 2002
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