Opinionated comments on mobile phone industry news
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All entries are written by Anders Borg, CEO and Consultant of Abiro, that has a long experience in strategic planning, developing embedded and Java software, usability aspects, and the mobile phone industry in general. You can also read the latest Mobile News entries on your phone via wap.abiro.com, and we provide many News Feeds from popular news services. For advertising and contribution queries, please use the feedback form. News feed (local) FeedBurner Feed
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Sunday, November 27, 2005
3G, still to show it's worth
This sums it up pretty well: Despite all the fancy offerings, it turns out that most people use their phones to make telephone calls and send the occasional text.
and this: In Europe voice is the clear revenue winner, closely followed by text. But we only spend an average of 1 euro a month on all the other services put together.
Yet, the feature train seems to continue rolling at an even faster pace, making phones unnecessarily expensive to the consumers and the operators. The question is though: Wouldn't the industry deflate if new features weren't added and people wouldn't upgrade their phones? Even if most of the features are not used people still want to have those features, so they upgrade. At least the manufacturers would be hit hard if operators refocused to specifying and offering simpler phones, instead putting pressure on manufacturers to cut prices.
The article mentions HSDPA (in layman's terms "faster 3G") as a way to overcome the limitations in current 3G, but performance can't be blamed for lack of consumer interest. Browsing mobile-adapted sites and transferring MMSs work pretty good over "normal" 3G, even though I admit 2.5G/GPRS is too slow for most anything. I rather think it's the "Don't expect consumers to buy whatever you put on display" phenomenon.
BBC NEWS | Programmes | Click Online | 3G industry optimistic for 2006
and this: In Europe voice is the clear revenue winner, closely followed by text. But we only spend an average of 1 euro a month on all the other services put together.
Yet, the feature train seems to continue rolling at an even faster pace, making phones unnecessarily expensive to the consumers and the operators. The question is though: Wouldn't the industry deflate if new features weren't added and people wouldn't upgrade their phones? Even if most of the features are not used people still want to have those features, so they upgrade. At least the manufacturers would be hit hard if operators refocused to specifying and offering simpler phones, instead putting pressure on manufacturers to cut prices.
The article mentions HSDPA (in layman's terms "faster 3G") as a way to overcome the limitations in current 3G, but performance can't be blamed for lack of consumer interest. Browsing mobile-adapted sites and transferring MMSs work pretty good over "normal" 3G, even though I admit 2.5G/GPRS is too slow for most anything. I rather think it's the "Don't expect consumers to buy whatever you put on display" phenomenon.
BBC NEWS | Programmes | Click Online | 3G industry optimistic for 2006
