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On Friday Japanese mobile phone operator J-Phone, a subsidiary of Vodafone, said it would launch a Tokyo-centric third generation (3G) mobile phone service in June and by October that system would go nationwide. This news from J-Phone follows announcements in previous weeks from KDDI, which expects to launch a 3G service in April. Meanwhile Japan's NTT DoCoMo has already launched its 3G service in October 2001.
Around the world more tangible signs seem to emerging that suggest that 3G (UMTS or CDMA) is almost here. The services, when launched, will offer incredibly fast data connections to mobile devices and should include features such as streaming video to mobile phones.
Orange in Sweden said this week it had set up a UMTS network in parts of the southern Swedish city of Malmo. The statement from Orange followed Sweden's Post and Telecoms Authority's (PTS) investigation into whether licence holders have operational networks in parts of Sweden as required. Full service in Sweden is not required to come on-line until 2003 but in other parts of Europe, in places like the Isle of Man and Monaco, companies have begun testing 3G with live users.
In the US, Sprint said this week that it planned to launch its own 3G network this summer while AT&T Wireless also said it plans to offer 3G services sometime this year, but did not offer specific dates. Cingular Wireless says it will have a 3G network in early 2004.
Other important 3G news since the start of the year came out of the US when Qualcomm Inc. said that North American carriers running wireless networks based on CDMA have begun receiving shipments of the next generation of high-speed phones and other devices. The company said all 29 CDMA carriers in North America, including market leader Verizon Wireless, have begun receiving the new equipment.
Meanwhile the industry produced, as usual, a plethora of 3G announcements including licensing agreements between Ericsson and Samsung, infrastructure equipment sales by Allgon and Superconductor Technologies and a content deal between Hutchison 3G and BBC Technology, to name few. A new term also came into the fray in the week, as "4G" was discussed by senior government officials from South Korea and Japan.
Despite the optimistic press which suggests that 3G is almost here, analysts say it isn't so. Lars Vestergaard, research manager with IDC, told ElectricNews.Net that 2002 "will be the year for immense testing, not the year for immense take up."
Vestergaard points out that the news is not all good. NTT DoCoMo said on Wednesday it is not likely to meet its goal of 150,000 subscribers for its third-generation services by the end of March 2002. Currently the service only has between 30,000 and 40,000 users, more than three months after launch.
Additionally, reports in China emerged this week that said the country is delaying its nationwide high-speed 3G rollout. However, in the Chinese press, Cao Suming, the person in charge of China's nationwide 3G experiments, refused to give reasons for the rollout delay. China Mobile has postponed the GPRS commercial launch dates several times and is having technical difficulties with the technology.
"It's on its way, but it's going to take time," Vestergaard said. He went on to say that the slow start for 3G would delay general public availability of the technology by three or four quarters and while networks are up and running in many places, handsets aren't available.
The current handset dilemma, according to Vestergaard, is liable to be compounded when first batches of handsets are released because they may not meet consumer scrutiny and expectations. According to Vestergaard, operators experienced the same kinds of hurdles when GPRS (2.5G) was rolled out across Europe.
Early 2.5G handsets were not in line with what consumers wanted, prices were often shocking for both the devices and the services when compared to 2G (GSM), and applications for GPRS have not emerged that offer consumers much value for the bandwidth that GPRS presents, said Vestergaard. In fact some operators in Sweden and Italy are now offering GPRS for free as a means to attract and retain customers to the service.
Vestergaard speculates that even when 3G becomes readily available, possibly in 2003, the service is sure to be riddled with defects in its early releases and, as DoCoMo can attest, there is no guarantee that users will embrace the service.
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