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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A look back at 2003
January 18, 2004
Last year we saw the beginning of 3G launches in Europe with much of
the headlines dominated by 3. Europeans finally got their hands on 3G
phones when 3 debuted its services in Italy and the UK back in March.
The company then followed up with launches in Australia, Austria, Sweden
and Denmark.
3 suffered a shaky start as a result of a lack of handsets and customers
had to wait a month before receiving their 3G phones. The following couple
of months were terrible for 3 and its subscribers, with complaints flooding
the call centre such as short handset battery life and consistent drop
calls. In the UK, 3 changed its marketing strategy a few months after
the launch, promoting cheaper voice calls rather than video telephony.
The complaints never stopped and towards the end of the year, 3 suffered
another setback when its handset suppliers failed to deliver enough handsets,
leaving the operator short of handsets for the Christmas period. This
also lead to Hutchison Whampoa, owners of 3, to delay the break even target
for its 3G business to 2006.
3's much publicised target of 1 million subscribers for each of the UK
market and Italy fell dramatically short. In Italy, 3 has around 340,000
customers and 210,000 in the UK. 3 said the 1 million target could be
reached in by the first half of 2004 when new handsets starts to arrive
early this year.
Over in Japan, NTT DoCoMo eventually hit the 1 million user mark in October
for its 3G FOMA service. It has taken DoCoMo two years to reach the target
and the operator has raised the forecast of 1.5 million users by March
2004 by en extra 500,000 customers. DoCoMo's much troubled 3G service
improved when new handsets started to appear and the coverage area expanded.
This is hardly a sign that things are looking great for the company. It's
rival KDDI has 11 million 3G subscribers for its CDMA2000 network, a massive
lead that DoCoMo would find hard to catch up.
Across the sea from Japan, saw the commercial release of WCDMA based
services in South Korea just before the end of 2003. Both SK Telecom and
KTF already operate 3G services based on CDMA2000 1X technology but the
licenses that they own also requires them to deploy WCDMA networks by
the end of 2003. It's a little foggy how much commitment both operators
will put in the new network and few would agree with the strategy of an
operator deploying two networks. Considering both operators has upgraded
parts of the existing 3G network to CDMA2000 EV-DO, WCDMA does not offer
anything significant in terms of new services. There is a duplicate of
investment for operators as they would need to rollout a new set of networks
and it is not surprising to see that both companies launched a very limited
service.
Would WCDMA succeed in South Korea? Probably not. Why would SK Telecom
and KTF want to invest heavily in a new infrastructure when they already
have a fully functional network? But it's not all doom and gloom for WCDMA
according to the Ministry of Information and Communication which insists
WCDMA would rule the world in around 2006. It is also hoped that deploying
WCDMA in South Korea would lead to home handset makers exporting more
handsets overseas, as they would have a competitive advantage in WCDMA.
How has CDMA2000 been doing in contrast with WCDMA? While CDMA2000 may
never reach the shores of Europe, it has had reasonable success elsewhere
following rollouts in the Americas and Asia. Japan and South Korea are
two indicators of the success CDMA2000 has over WCDMA, as they are the
two countries that have commercial services running on both technologies.
South Korea has only just launched WCDMA but it represents how companies
think of the technology, that it is still not mature enough and to delay
the launch as much as possible. That is exactly what operators in Europe
are doing at the moment. Operators are extracting as much revenue from
2G and 2.5G networks while waiting for the consumer to react to 3G. Handsets
are also something operators are waiting for. The lack in range of handsets
and the bulky phones has stopped consumers moving to 3G.
In Japan, KDDI (using CDMA2000) has a clear lead in terms of subscribers
over DoCoMo (using WCDMA) partly due the its extensive range of handsets
that are similar in size and battery life to 2G/2.5G phones. DoCoMo only
started to gain customers when slimmer handsets with longer battery life
became available. According to top executives, decent WCDMA handsets won't
appear in Europe until 2005 or 2006. Even so, a number of operators in
Europe are expected to launch next generation services this year.
2003 saw the first health report relating to 3G. The report, conducted
by a Dutch research firm, concluded that signals emitted from 3G base
stations causes headaches and nausea. Past reports on radiation from 2G
failed to turn out any significant health problems. Obliviously the mobile
industry has quickly dismissed the report and said it was insufficient
to determine 3G signals cause health problems. In Denmark, ministers have
called for a stop in the building of 3G base stations until health issues
are investigated and that radiation has no harmful effects on humans.
In the UK citizens are taking the health matter into their own hands by
sabotaging base stations. Base stations were set on fire and pulled down
in several sites and protestors are stopping engineers replacing or repair
damaged sites. Residents living near 3G sites complained of a rise in
health problems, but operators do not see it as a problem.
The year 2003 proved to be a rather disappointing year for 3G as a number
of promised rollouts in Europe were not fulfilled. The 3G killer applications
just did not materialise and video conferencing demonstrated that it is
not the mass revenue generator that many said it would be.
Things to watch out for in 2004
Top service providers in Europe are expected to launch 3G services this
year. Among those includes Vodafone in the UK, possibility in the second
half of the year. The UK may also see O2 commence service, again in the
second half of the year and the operator should be launching 3G in Germany.
By the end of the year in the UK, the competition for 3G could become
fierce and it would be interesting to see Vodafone and O2's strategies
and how 3 would react to it.
Consumers in Hong Kong can finally experience 3G thanks to 3 launching
the service on its home turf. This market may prove to be less successful
than elsewhere for 3. Hong Kong people may have a love for mobile phones
but the region is still mainly voice oriented and revenue from data services
is disappointingly low. 3's data services may not be able to attract the
masses and video telephony could take time for consumers to get used to.
In 2003, video telephony failed to wow consumers and has yet to fulfil
the 3G killer application title.
Video calling will not get endorsement from top handset maker Nokia in
2004. While mobile phones from SonyEricsson, NEC and Motorola will support
video calling, Nokia is going the other way and putting video telephony
to one side this year. Its latest 3G phone, the 7600, supports videos
and music but not video calls. The move could upset the take-up rate for
video calling and may undermine Nokia's position in the 3G market. Nokia
will provide video calling functional handsets in the future once the
markets for such a service exists.
Key industry players will be fixing their eyes closely on China after
the country failed to award 3G licenses in 2003. Foreign firms are eager
to get a slice of the action in the biggest mobile market. China has not
set a schedule for handing out licenses but it is expected to be this
year, but then again many expected it to be awarded last year. Much of
the delay surrounds the development of the home grown technology TD-SCDMA.
The delay allows more time for tests to be carried out on the technology.
China is keen to launch TD-SCDMA and the development of the first TD-SCDMA
mobile phone boost the chances of the technology becoming commercially
available. If licenses are handed out this year, the question would be
will TD-SCDMA be a compulsory technology that all service providers must
deploy.
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3G Motorola A920
