Taiwan telcos need at least two years for 3G services to take off
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Taiwan's telecommunications industry will need at least another two years before third-generation (3G) mobile phone services generate meaningful revenues, an industry chief executive was quoted in the Financial Times as saying.
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Number of users with high-speed connections has tripled in the last three years.
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(InfoWorld) - Don't expect new mobile phone services based on the Internet Protocol to become nearly as prevalent as those running over PCs. That's the view of Hamid Akhavan, CEO of T-Mobile International, one of Europe's largest mobile phone operators. VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) services provided over mobile phone networks will have "far less impact" than those offered over fixed-line networks, Akhavan said Tuesday on the sidelines of a news conference at theÂ 3GSM conferenceÂ in Barcelona. "There are all sorts of technical issues that make mobile VOIP services difficult to implement," he said. Technical issues related to how networks pass on IP addresses of mobile users have not been completely resolved, he noted. "Take reachability, for example: How can the call come to me?" Akhavan also said emergency phone service and "always on" connectivity are also big issues, since staying online takes up bandwidth on pricey mobile networks. And then there's price: "When people talk about VOIP, they think free," Akhavan said. "With any mobile service provided over the Internet, you're going to need to buy a data package." Mobile VOIP "will take a small share" of revenue generated by mobile voice services, he said. Akhavan's views on the technical and commercial hurdles are shared even by some of the key advocates of mobile VOIP -- namely Skype. In a recent interview with a Finnish newspaper, Skype co-founder and CEO Niklas ZennstrÃ¶m spoke of "technical obstacles" and conceded that efforts to make Skype work had been taking "much longer than expected." Earlier, Eric Lagier, Skype director of business development for hardware and mobile, called the lack of attractive flat-rate fees for most mobile phone services a key commercial hurdle to mobile VOIP usage. He said the company didn't want to be in a position of claiming that its service is free, but facing users who at the end of the month are docked with a huge broadband usage fee. At last year's 3GSM World Congress, Skype and the Hutchison 3 Group (Hutchison 3G)Â announced a partnershipÂ to provide what they had hoped to become the world's first commercial VOIP service for mobile phones. Hutchison 3G, which operates IP-based mobile broadband networks in several European markets, was one of the first mobile phone operators to embrace VOIP, a technology many in the industry view as a major threat to their cash-cow voice business.
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China remains one of the few Asian countries without 3G service, despite years of breakneck economic development.
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The land of Internet calling may not be free of regulation for much longer.
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Ofcom promises to think about it The GSM Association, trade body of the mobile phone industry, is calling for regulators around the world to allow the use of 3G technology in the 900MHz band.â¦
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T-Mobile USA, the U.S. wireless unit of Deutsche Telekom AG (DTEGn.DE), does not expect to offer broadband mobile data services for at least the next two years, its chief executive said on Thursday.
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CHEJU, South Korea  - Global mobile operators and   device makers are betting that the next level of transmission   technology will ramp up mobile phone usage in a way that   third-generation technology has so far failed to do.
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Analysts suggest that 802.11n Wi-Fi will start replacing wired Ethernet within the next two to three years.
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InfoWorld - Operators in India and China are waiting for government approval to roll out 3G (third-generation) mobile services based on CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), according to an industry group that backs the technology.
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EU deal for low frequency 3G delayed European mobile operators will have to wait a while before they can deploy 3G technology into 900 and 1800 MHz, thanks to a power struggle between the EU Commission and its Parliament.â¦
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The city of Taipei plans to make wireless Internet access available throughout the Taiwanese capital by the end of next year.
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HONG KONG -- Consumers have been promised a lot from the high-speed 3G (third generation) cellular networks being rolled out around the world, but is there much in it for businesses?
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Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan's leading telecom operator, says it plans to invest 8-10 billion dollars (244-305 million US) in its third-generation (3G) mobile phone business over the next two to three years.
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U.S.-based wireless technology company Qualcomm said on Tuesday it expects &#36;50 handsets for faster third generation (3G) mobile phone networks to be on the market in two years' time.
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Experts say it is only a matter of time before the 2.2 billion mobile phone users around the world consider it natural to tune into a 15-second spot.
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Third-generation mobile phone network 3 reports a rise in its UK customer base to 1.2 million - but its Hong Kong parent firm is hit by heavy 3G losses.