Reality Check | Ephraim Schwartz » 3GSM Conference: Business imperatives are slowing down mobile advances

February 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)

3GSM Conference: Business imperatives are slowing down mobile advances

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News coming out of the huge 3GSM conference in Barcelona is not that good for mobile business users.

As predicted here, Reality Check, only yesterday mobile VoIP [Voice over IP] supported by the current cellular carrier network is not going to happen any time soon.

If you read my blog you will see that the carriers are not that anxious to push a technology that undermines millions of dollars already invested in cellular spectrum.

John Blau, of the IDG News Service reports today on a speech made at 3GSM by T-Mobile CEO Hamid Akahavan.

"VoIP services provided over mobile phone networks will have 'far less impact' than those offered over fixed-line networks," according to Akhavan.

Akhaan claims "there are technical issues that make mobile VoIP services difficult to implement," and I add there are monetary disincentives for the carriers to solve the problem.

In the meantime, Martyn Williams, another intrepid IDG News Service reporter writes that Samsung will demo faster Mobile WiMAX at 3GSM.

But if you read his report closely you will see the only one jumping on the WiMAX bandwagon is Sprint Nextel.

As I also mentioned in my column yesterday, Sprint is the only
major carrier that owns enough WiMAX licensed spectrum to make it worth their while to deploy WiMAX as an alternative to cellular.

By the way one of the great advantages of WiMAX is that it is an IP technology which would make it so much easier to deploy and support for network providers and their customers.

The news that Nokia and Siemens are combining networks makes one wonder if carriers haven't quite figured out how to monetize their data services. It could be a sign that these two companies are trying to combine technologies and thus eliminate costly duplication, lower their operating costs and compete with the other major carriers who have been on a merger spree for the last two years.

If you doubt what I say look at this report from John Blau of the IDG News Service.

Blau reports that the CEO designate of the new Nokia Siemens network said that "HDTV and IPTV [Internet Protocol television] would lead to a hundred-fold increase in data traffic by 2015."

Perhaps this is a combination of wishful thinking and or reassurance to investors and financial analysts that everything will be okay.

Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on February 13, 2007 11:15 AM

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