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Key Players Discuses Next Generation Technologydate: September 25, 2001 At the World PC Forum, experts from the mobile industry discussed the future of mobile systems with regard to 3G technology. Since the standards regarding the content appear to be in a state of flux at the moment, with various markup languages (Compact HTML, XHTML Basic and WML) jousting for supremacy, Access must bear many factors in mind if its browser software, currently installed in 80 percent of the Japanese Web-enabled mobile market, is to maintain its position. However, the forthcoming NetFront 3.0 is designed to handle all this diversity and more, integrating mobile and broadband technologies more fully than is the case at present. In fact, this "Swiss army knife" approach seems necessary, as the carriers seem to be approaching the next generation with very few clear ideas of what they will be providing and how, producers of 3D representation of maps. The hope here is that 3G mobile technology will allow these representations to be downloaded in real time to mobile devices in order to aid the lost traveler). There seems to be uncertainty regarding not only the format of the content, but the content itself. While the 3G systems have been hailed as providing the bandwidth necessary for mobile video, the carriers seem reluctant to commit themselves to the provision of either streaming video or two-way video conferencing, citing ignorance of the content type and lack of demand for ISDN videophones as reasons (even though the demographics and applications will be different from landline systems). In the end, as Barry and Rundstrom both pointed out, the market will be the driving force, but one certainly obtained the impression that the pace of the technology had outstripped the marketing planning in this case. A similar confusion also seemed to be present when it came to discussing the transitional era, when full coverage by the 3G service will not be obtainable. When pressed, Rundstrom admitted that dual-mode phones (2/2.5 and 3G) were possible, but only given a long lead time. Such a possibility did not seem to have been seriously considered by the carriers, who were less than forthcoming on the integration of existing and future technologies. Given that there have been a number of problems involving faulty software in recent phone models involving product recall , the question came up as to whether a patching system should be employed for future fixes, similar to the Microsoft Service Packs, etc. Again the answer came that it was technically possible, but DoCoMo then expressed a strong preference for product recall as the method of solving such problems, even though Access had pointed to the automatic patch download and update system currently used by digital broadcast receivers, completely transparent to the user. A "wait-and-see" attitude also applies to the integration of phones with PDAs, smart phones. Again, technically such devices are feasible, but no speaker seemed prepared to go out on a limb and commit to the possible future of such devices. All in all, the session was frustrating for a journalist accustomed to trying to predict the future, but pointed quite clearly to the fact that any company with a clear vision of how to best exploit the potential of 3G mobile systems in Japan could end up with a very clear market advantage.
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