The industry hopes GPRS will be a lucrative business that reignites consumer interest ahead of the launch of even more faster and expensive 3G mobile services in early 2002.

"GPRS services has already started in the UK and I think that by Christmas time it will be a mass market for it and early next year we will eventually sees 3G services offered by carriers.'' Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President of Nokia.

However, Nokia decided to start selling GPRS phones in Europe because it feared it might not generate enough revenues to cover making cost and it felt the market was not yet ready. Rumours suggested Nokia might skip the 2.5G gap and move forward into 3G. Nokia was disappointed with the slow take-up of WAP services and with 2.5G not much differences from 2G, except speed, it was concerned it will not convince users to buy it.

Nokia said technology that would make it possible to offer attractive services like music, video and picture messaging, was not yet ready.

"So you are better off if you introduce that (2.5G GPRS) as a sideline to the main thing (3G)'' a spokesman from Nokia said.

Motorola, Nokia's nearest rival, already started offering 2.5G phones and believed its 2.5G handsets will convince users that 3G will be even better.

GPRS phones can maintain a constant connection to the Internet, which means users will be notified when e-mails arrive, but only charge for data downloaded and will be a migration to 3G for most carriers.

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last updated: January 12, 2004

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This book discusses 3G services from the view of what is needed for the service to provide value to the user, what is the value proposition for the user, how will money be made out of delivering the service, and discussions on how revenue sharing propositions might work to benefit content providers and network operators. 3G operators should take note of this highly recommended book.

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