|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
Your advert here!!! Our Guides Technical Editors:
Last modified: |
WAP Insight Vol: 7 Issue 250 January 31st 2005O2’s 3G offering majors on pricingA
heavy emphasis on price is how British operator, O2, aims to sell its 3G
service. It's available to contract customers on February 1st [2005], while
pre-pay customers will have to wait longer. For example, O2 is offering a low
cost Windows Mobile wireless PDA. The X4 is a 3G clamshell based on O2's
Windows based XDA line, yet will cost as little as £30 on contract or £250 on
pre-pay. Compare that to the Nokia 6630 which is £130 and £400 respectively. Its
3G tariffs mirror what customers are paying for 2.5G (GPRS) and crucially video
calling will attract no additional cost until May 1st - even across networks.
All this disguises the fact that 3G coverage will be mere 32 per cent of
population (compared to 3's 80 per cent) and won't reach 50 per cent until June.
The advantage is that O2's network will be easily upgradeable to high speed 3G (HSDPA)
in 2006. That'll mean users get DSL alike speeds of 1 Mbit/s. O2 plans to
showcase a commercial HSDPA service on the Isle of Man in Q3 2005. It'll use a
special PDA called the OQO. Curiously Siemens is supplying the gear for O2's
roll out - except the Isle of Man which is using Lucent gear. Siemens is also
supplying O2 with the hardware to convert from a circuit switched core to an
all-IP one via IMS. O2's 3G handset line-up is a slight mystery. In addition to
the 6630 and the X4, there'll be the Z107 from Samsung, the Motorola V975 and
the Sony Ericsson V800. However, a second Nokia handset, the 6680 appeared on
the Powerpoint slides - probably by mistake. 450 MHz the next battlegroundOne of the original analogue mobile phone networks - NMT (Nordic Mobile Telephone) - is effectively dead. So there's a giant scramble to re-use the 450 MHz frequencies for mobile broadband. And guess who's dead keen to see 450 MHz utilised for CDMA networks? Qualcomm, of course. The first big battleground for 450 turns out to be in Germany. The German regulator, RegTP, announced the assignment of frequencies for wideband PAMR (Public Access Mobile Radio) in the frequency bands 451.00 - 455.74 MHz and 461.00 - 465.74 MHz just before Xmas. Since there were only two applications (and three possible licenses), Inquam Deutschland and T-Mobile were the winners. Although there's been no official announcement, since Qualcomm has a serious interest in Inquam, it's bound to use CDMA450. What will T-Mobile do? Well, since T-Mobile has been experimenting with Flash OFDM from Flarion in The Netherlands, it's got more than a fair chance of supplying the technology. WAP Insight reckons that the Inquam network counts as the first true CDMA network in Western Europe. There's another one operated by Inquam in Portugal but it's being deployed as fixed line replacement not a cellular style public network per se. It doesn't end there. Sweden should be making an announcement about 450 on February 17th and Finland should follow suit closely afterwards. Flarion's EMEA marketing director, Joe Barrett, reckons his company is in with a fighting chance especially since its gear will be distributed by Siemens. Plus Flash OFDM is designed for IP from the ground up whereas CDMA450 is a modified voice network. The best bit is that Flarion's offering provides DSL-alike throughput speeds so you can have a superfast Internet connexion on your laptop or via a desktop modem. Incidentally, WAP insight hadn't spotted that Inquam's attempt to buy into Britain - via Dolphin Telecom - had quietly disappeared last July [2004]. Inquam wanted to use CDMA but was told it must stick to TETRA. www.inquam.com02 dismisses BluephoneDo we
detect a hint of old rivalries in comments made by O2 executives over the
Bluephone? That's a combined fixed line and mobile phone which BT is planning to
launch. The Bluephone gains its name from utilising Bluetooth technology for
linking the handset to a base station. According to Dave Williams, CTO with O2,
the resulting voice quality is "worse than DECT." Given that DECT is at least 18
years old, that's harsh condemnation. Williams suggested that using Wi-Fi
instead of Bluetooth would be far more practical. MMO2 (the parent company)
already runs a service in Germany called Genion which uses cell location to
provide a wireless land line replacement facility. The handsets run a small app
which enables it to answer on two different telephone numbers. One is for fixed
line replacement at home and the other is for normal mobile use. Williams
revealed O2 can't use the same system in the UK because its cellular network
uses older technology. If the Bluephone is launched in the UK, it will probably
be by BT Mobile (O2's former owner) over the Vodafone network (O2's arch rival).
So no love lost there. Other technologies which O2 won't be offering including
Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) as too niche; EDGE (no point if you already
have W-CDMA); and no Wi-Fi of its own - it partners instead. O2 hasn't ruled out
WiMax though. Siemens drops to fifth placeSiemens has definitely dropped to fifth place in the global stakes sales after reporting sales of 13.5 million units compared to LG's 13.9 million. It also failed to say what it will do with the division following loses of $186 million (£99 million) for the last quarter. Confusion reigned yesterday as some analysts will still quoting Siemens as the fourth largest. However, figures were released that day by Strategy Analytics which showed that Siemens had already slipped to fifth. Strategy Analytics said 684 million handsets had been shipped in 2004, up 32 per cent on 2003. Senior analyst, Neil Mawston predicted the market would grow to circa 735 million phones in 2005, although prices would decline. Nokia has clawed its way back to 33.1 per cent thanks largely to caving in over clamshell handsets. Motorola leapt from 13.9 to 15.9 per cent, thus keeping Samsung at bay with just 10.6 per cent. LG had overtaken Siemens which slipped to 6.8 percent from 7.6 per cent while LG had 7 per cent. Sony Ericsson remained steady with a 6.3 per cent. Nokia put its own share of the market higher than Strategy at 34 per cent with 66.1 million phones in Q4 2004. If it carries on like that then 2005 may see a global market of 800 million phones shipped rather than just 735 million. Siemens bad performance is blamed on Nokia's price-cutting. WAP Insight thinks it just can't ship its snazzy models fast enough and in sufficient volumes. New names linked to a joint venture with Siemens Mobile include Panasonic (possible) and Huawei (unlikely). The handset division is part of the same group as infrastructure sales and there Huawei is an arch rival to Siemens – especially in China itself.
Spinners threaten mobile revenues
A
sneaky kind of mobile phone user, nicknamed a spinner, has been identified by
British mobile operator - MMO2. Peter Erskine, the group's CEO, claims to have
identified a quarter of a million of them in Q4 2004. Essentially what a spinner
does is buy a new pre-paid handset and then burn up the inclusive minutes (talk
time) which come with the accompanying SIM card. Once those minutes expire, the
spinner throws away the new SIM and goes back to his or her old SIM (and
accompanying telephone number). O2 argues that if rival networks don't correctly
identify spinners, they'll over-inflate their true number of subscribers. 0.25
million is hardly a trifling number. Intriguingly O2 has only identified
spinners in the highly competitive UK market but not in Germany or Eire. Their
key characteristic is that they suddenly abandon their new SIM after 8-11 weeks.
It will be interesting to see if other UK networks adopt the same approach -
especially pre-pay specialists like Virgin and Tesco. The problem is expected to
get worse once SIM cards become freely available via the Internet. The Easy
Group is plotting to sell SIM cards via the Web, for example. It was also
interesting to note that Vodafone didn't say how many of its recent acquisitions
were 3G users. That would be a very interesting number to its rivals. |
|
