Qualcomm and Teleepoch
Enter Into a 3G CDMA Subscriber Unit License Agreement, October
6, 2007
MTN chooses Cambridge Broadband
Networks for multi-service wireless network in Rwanda, October 6,
2007
Brazilian government to
publish 3G bidding rules soon, October 6, 2007
KTF 3G service suffers
from technical problems, October 6, 2007
Argentina’s Personal
lunches 3G service in Rosario, October 6, 2007
Russia has it's first 3G
network, October 6, 2007
AT&T could drop Alcatel-Lucent
as 3G mobile network supplier, October 6, 2007
Enea Extends License Agreement
with ZTE for 3G Handsets, October 2, 2007
LG to unveil premium handsets
in Brazil, October 2, 2007
KTF 3G subscribers doubled
in less than 3 months, October 2, 2007
3G policy in India will
be non-uniform, October 2, 2007
- previous news
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Pornography's next digital crusade could well be 3G - report
April 24, 2003
The adult entertainment industry has to be one of the most odd businesses
in the world. It is all about one of the most natural things in the world
between being born and dying yet practically no one wants to admit having
any knowledge of ever having been near it and to top it all someone is
spending 10's of billions of Euros a year on it.
But when looking at what the adult entertainment industry has done for
the Internet, it is not surprising that more and more people in the mobile
sector are secretly hoping that adult entertainment can help push the
mobile industry forward in the same way.
Looking at the Internet, adult entertainment has helped push the Internet
forward in many different ways. For example, getting access to adult content
has helped the growth in the number of PC's in the home and been one of
the reasons to connect those PC's to the Net. The adult entertainment
business has helped the development of compression technologies, especially
in streaming software and optimising bandwidth capabilities, surfers have
upgraded their PC's with graphics and sound capabilities and of course
embraced ADSL. Maybe one of the most important factors that the adult
entertainment business should take some of the credit for is the fact
that it has helped teach surfers how to install and use different software
products like Real Video and given them a better understanding and knowledge
of the capabilities of the PC and Internet. Although there are no statistics
available, many peoples first buying experience on the Internet using
their credit card could well have been for some adult content - making
the next purchase for software, goods or other items much easier. Adult
content has helped many other new technologies on their way including
CD-ROMs, VCR's, various types of cameras, and even cable television.
Unfortunately, asides from adult content, it has been very difficult
to make money on the Internet and the lack of micro billing from the start
has simply meant that most surfers will not pay for most of the online
content they find - asides from the "need to have".
It is simply this scenario that the mobile sector is now looking to,
as mobile phones today really start having multimedia capability, with
larger colour screens, video capability, larger memory on memory cards
and processors on some of the smart phones that are faster than most PC's
10 years ago.
One of the biggest differences is that mobile consumers have never had
access to any free content on their mobile phone. All content costs at
least the price of an SMS or phone call. Another huge difference between
the Internet and the mobile sector is that the mobile operators are already
billing customers and any new content can simply be billed on the consumers
monthly phone bill.
Even if the adult entertainment business decides not to go with the mobile
operators billing systems, for example by offering an Internet subscription
you pay with your credit card that includes access from your mobile phone,
the mobile operator will still earn money on the actual data traffic that
user will generate when accessing content over the air.
Of course, an adult entertainment provider could even bypass that, by
offering the user to download adult content directly from his PC to his
mobile phone, but then the user has to be careful who for example borrows
his phone - as it has resident adult content on it that discloses his
or her sexual preferences - something many people would prefer to keep
private. It is much more likely that mobile consumers will go for content
that they access online through their mobile browser - or as streaming
- when the need arises - so to speak and absolutely no pun intended!
Those who think that no one in their right mind would enjoy adult content
on a mobile screen simply because of the screen size will have to think
again. There is already a mobile adult entertainment business that is
- all things considered - doing quite nicely on the very limited SMS platform.
Also mobile services are being used to promote adult content on the Internet,
to buy and pay for passwords to an Internet site and other innovative
uses of the up till now very limited mobile terminal capabilities. Also
adult content on a larger colour mobile screen will be just as good or
better quality than what we saw in the early days of the Internet, where
there was already lots of adult content (so I'm told :-).
Already today, some of the major adult entertainment players like Private.com
and Playboy have signed their first mobile content agreements and are
ready to go with media rich mobile content and there is absolutely no
reason why there wont be a big uptake on those types of services on the
mobile phone - both for the novelty factor and ehmmm. the other factor.
There are still challenges ahead including legislation issues and protecting
minors from access. Also mobile operators both feel that mobile adult
entertainment content is somewhat of a "no no" for their image
and of course something that they don't wont mobile customers to be conned
by, like many have been with Internet "dialer-software" and
fixed line telephony sex lines.
While no one actually knows exactly how much is being spent on adult
content on the Internet, it is much easier to track adult content on the
mobile platforms. According to Strand Consults latest reports "How
to make money on mobile services" and "How to make money on
mobile services" Facts & Figures, adult mobile content will grow
from a total market value of 553 million Euro in Western Europe in 2003,
to a very conservative estimate of 2.7 billion Euro by the end of 2005.
Even though this figure could easily be much higher, 2.7 billion Euro
is well over 10% of the total value of the mobile services market.
At the end of the day, the benefits from getting the adult industry to
help teach consumers just one of the many new uses and possibilities the
new generation of mobile phone offer - combined with the revenue opportunities
- will just be to good for the mobile operators to overlook. Right now
they probably cannot even afford to overlook it. Only time and genetic
science will show whether there are any longer term side effects in having
to use two hands to masturbate!
"How to make money on mobile services" is a report about the
development and value of all types of mobile services in 16 mobile markets
in Europe from 2002 to 2005. The mobile services are split into type of
service, network technology, service technology, country and each figure
is also split up into the operators perspective and content providers
perspective - not only giving a very clear picture country by country
as to which types of services will have the most success on the different
platforms and when it will happen - but also how big a share of the revenues
from any given service in any country the content providers can expect.
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3G Motorola A920
