Will P2P guarantee the future of 3G?

NEWS Think 3G is dead in the water? Well, think again - a report out today reveals that the average European consumer is positive about the technology. Many experts have damned the technology, with one famously authoring a report called 'The bell tolls - 3G RIP' (http://www.silicon.com/a55147 ). But research out today from The Thinking Box, a new London-based consultancy, predicts that 3G will be helped by consumers' insatiable appetite for applications that allow them to communicate with one another. This will drive early 3G expansion through peer-to-peer applications such as video calls and multimedia messaging (MMS). The report says: "Applications based on self-generated content will meet instant success." As a result, 3G will reach 50 percent of European mobile users by 2007, according to the survey. Text messaging will all but disappear, and will be replaced by Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM), offering a mobile version of the popular PC-based instant messaging services. Video calls will also be important. "The interviewees were truly amazed by the possibility of 'video call': they couldn't believe that this spectacular innovation would be available in the next few months in their country," the report says. Thinking Box downplayed the notion that applications such as web browsing and m-commerce will be central drivers for 3G, although these would add "a crucial extra 15 per cent... to mobile operators' turnover" by 2007. The company predicts that in five years' time, average revenue per user (ARPU) will have increased by 150 per cent, with voice still the largest share of income, at 62 per cent. A major force in rolling out 3G will be the operators such as Hutchison who do not have standard GSM licences, and rely on the new technology for all their revenues, Thinking Box said: "Like it or not, competitors will be obliged to follow -- and may even be forced to adjust their strategies." The consultancy also found that 2.5G - the term for stopgap data-based networks such as GPRS - are likely to be 3G's biggest threat. This threat will only grow as operators delay their 3G rollouts and GPRS becomes more entrenched. Thinking Box reached its conclusions by carrying out in-depth research with a small group of 100 representative Europeans. Matthew Broersma writes for ZDNet UK