Though third-generation mobile phones offer almost everything – from quick connection with Internet to video clips and color images, more and more experts look doubtful about a possibility of revolution in the world of mobile communication and ask themselves a question whether the user needs all these functions. In this material, Jane Wakefield, a BBC correspondent, looks at the prospects of 3G mobile communication.
Nick Hunn, one of the experts and Managing Director of TDK Systems, said that users were a bit disappointed when they found out how the third-generation communication is organized during test trials of phones on the Isle of Man. “People joked that third-generation mobile phones are good to warm their hands with – they are large and become very warm”, – says Hunn.
If we read advertising brochures, 3G looks perfect – users were promised a great variety of data and the companies that participated in tenders on frequencies in new networks said that the new standard will secure a more important role of a mobile phone in our life than it has now.
However, about two years passed. The operators are trying to decide what to do with huge debts accumulated in the course of license rush, while independent analysts say that 3G will probably not only fail to bring mobile industry to a new level, but, on the contrary, will slow down its development. Nick Hunn is one of them. “By investing absolutely absurd sums in third-generation network licenses, the operators in fact pledged the future of mobile telephony. It was actually a vanity fair”, – he says.
Operators in different countries paid for these licenses in a different way. Scandinavian operators paid a relatively small part, and the rest was added by the government against a share in future profits. In Great Britain, mobile networks owners paid for everything by themselves. However, the problem is that the power of many companies on the market of mobile communications is spread on several countries at once. It looks like some users will sponsor others.
