COMMENT
Written whilst flying from Crete to London Gatwick and dispatched via free Wi-Fi service on the Coventry UK Science Park.
Soon after the introduction of 2G (second generation) mobiles, a few extras were added to realize a capability someway between 2 and 3G. In particular WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) technology was heralded as a great breakthrough, offering great promise. Soon TV adverts were showing people watching TV-quality moving images and surfing the net as if their mobile was a full-size PC.
The reality check hit hard fast! On mobiles, moving images turned out to be jerky and of a very poor quality, and as for surfing, just about everything was wrong. Nothing on the net rendered correctly for a scaled-down screen and the response time between pressing a key and some reaction was of the order of 30 seconds or so. The net result? Millions of dollars wasted in promotions and advertising, disillusioned customers and a damaged mobile industry.
Surely no one would be so silly as to do a repeat? Well, er, not exactly! 3G was also launched in a blaze of publicity, and despite the protestations of the technologists involved, it has never been able to deliver against the original claims. Chip sets were later than expected, battery life was shorter that projected and the promised 2Mbps to each handset was never delivered. The bandwidth offer was never feasible (then or now) on any significant scale. So again the promise of TV-quality images and net surfing fell flat!
Despite all of this, and the 3G license fiasco, 3G networks gradually have become a reality. The infrastructure investment has been vast and rapid, at about twice the rate of 2G. But such is the skepticism in the market that customers seem loath to buy. Handsets are almost literally being given away. And they still suffer poorer battery life and performance than their established 2.5G counterparts. And how about 2Mbps? Well, that turns out to be closer to 56Kpbs for reasonably populated cell coverage - exactly as predicted over six years ago in the midst of the development cycle.
So what happens next? What might be the industry's next great gaffe - real-time TV and video-on-demand on the move? Why am I skeptical? Again the numbers just don't add up! 3G simply does not have the bandwidth to simultaneously supply a significant number of handsets with real time anything of quality! And would users want such a TV service? I don't know - and no one does. But look at the sales of pocket TV sets at $100 - hardly astronomic. I suspect this will be a bigger lead balloon than the attempt to get people to do videoconferencing on 3G.
Oops - I forgot to mention the sticky problem of charges. How much will it cost to watch TV for an hour or a movie for two on your mobile? Better start thinking about a second mortgage!
The mobile industry seems to suffer a big disconnect between marketing, sales, engineering reality and the customer base. Young people take pics, make movies and load music files. And they share data - but not over the 2.5 or 3G networks. They use Bluetooth or a USB lead! Why? Because it costs nothing! Try doing anything involving pictures, sound files and movies over a mobile network and it will cost you a packet!
And here comes the next tidal wave - and it aint live TV. Broadcasters may soon be suffering at the hands of podcasting and vBlogs in the same way the music industry suffered at the hands of MP3. And just as the music industry lost the MP3 Wars, it may well be that podcasting will be the nemesis for broadcasting. No one knows for certain but we'll soon see!
One thing is sure - and that is the vision put forward by the mobile telecoms industry will be wrong. Not wholly wrong but well off beam. The reason? Their customers are both smart and canny, as well as the ones calling the shots. Of course the other reason is the industry doesn't seem to watch or listen to either the customer base or engineering advice.
And before anybody in the industry starts shooting emails in my direction, I have used 3G but I gave it to my son! The reason? Wi-Fi gives me more, VoIP fills in the static gaps and 2.5G does the mobile bit really well. Yes I have money to spend but not to waste. Like other users, I look for convenience and value... and technology has to do what it says on the tin!
Comments
There are 4 comments. Join the discussion
1. Neil Dipple
In the short term there is a use for 3G, but its for voice calls. On July 7th it proved problematical to get a signal / connection on mobile phones. Rumours of mobile coverage being reserved just for Government / emergency services have been shown to be groundless, but with everyone trying to phone friends / family etc the networks became overloaded.
The only ones which were not was - 3G. So if you want to ensure you can contact people in the event of a disaster / terorist incident, get a 3G phone before everyone else does. Obviously only a short term fix.
2. Lee Dryburgh
Peter, I've been working hands on with 3G since the start of 2001 with the first roll outs (as a signalling/softswitch engineer).
Over the past 2 years I have been shouting the same message internally, that what is coming out of the marketing department will not be a success and that the operators need to quit the command-and-control citidel like approach with customers. Instead they need to co-create value with their customers.
Like you I have plenty surplus money per month, but gave my 3G enabled phone to my 10 year old daughter since she liked it's ability to record video.
I was pulled up at the latest 3G company I worked for, for carrying a black and white 2G phone. I was told to modernise to the companie's brand. I replied that all the services/charges on offer were poor in my opinion and not of interest. Furthermore I wanted the better battery life, simplicity, and size of a 2G phone.
I have been completely dissapointed with cellular operators in Europe which is incredible since they pay me and yet they cannot entice me to move beyond a 2G phone.
I did opt for a 2.5G (GPRS) datacard for laptop. But then they wanted £6/meg if roaming, and in Europe you are nearly always roaming, so I have not used it for around a year and a half!
The operators are blowing the game for themselves. They should be using this relatively "safe" period before disruption really hits them to align and to reinvent themselves into the new ecology that telephony is blending into (replaced by the Internet for transport, and a simple augmentation of eCommerce).
Before long technologies like Flarion and xMax will trample in the cellular space pretty much like Skype trampled into fixed line space.
The end is in sight for operators and that has caused myself much concern since they are the one's who pay for my reasonable lifestyle. Their inability to listen will be their downfall.
Take for example, the operator I have worked with for the past 2 years. I have told them at every service launch that it will not be a success. I know as a matter of fact each service was a financial loss. Also many of the services were technically fudged meaning very poor customer experience.
I am trying to work out where things are going and have just began putting thoughts at www.MyDoctorate.com
It was only just in the past 2 weeks that I looked at my phones and thought I fancy some new kit. I had money to burn. But a quick look at operators sites yielded "walled garden" Internet at stupid roaming prices.
3. Jim Evans
Excellent article.
Between 1998 and 2001, I was giving training on IPv4 / IPv6 to groups of managers and engineers within mobile phone companies all over Europe in preparation for the 2.5G / 3G roll-out.
I was not popular (at least with the senior staff), if I expressed similar views to PeterC. I pointed out that GPRS offering a share of 28.8kbps at £6/Meg; it was of little interest when I could do a switched circuit 14.4kbps dedicated modem call with about 15min a megabyte within my "free" call allowance. [Q. "Why are you offering me a share of a speed that I stopped using as dial-up 5 years ago when I am being told that 10Mbps is too slow in the office?" - A. "You don't understand the benefits of 'always-on' and not having to dial-up. "]
Through-out my 35 year career, telecomms companies have continuously tried to move up the stack from line and bit pipe providers or from Wide Area to Local Area to make money from the explosive growth in DP demands. Every time the result has been too little, too expensive, too late compared to what the DP crowd wanted or had available. (X.25, ISDN, X.400, Frame Relay, Cell Relay).
IP is now full of facilities that cannot map onto the current "broadband" infrastructure or onto the outdated business models that the traditional telco's force upon us - ie multicasting V point to point Virtual circuits; full mobility V restricted and expensive "roaming".
But we shouldn't forget that hundreds of millions of messages are sent monthly at the cost of £750,000 / Gigabyte. I can transfer that data at between 0p (marginal cost) and £14.99 (limited capacity ADSL line). Is text messaging really that much better than a PDA with WiFi?
4. Peter Cochrane
Lee = Nice web page - and you and I seem to have been frustrated by the same stupidities! Peter