The Road To 3G

HONG KONG – The wireless world is a-changing – or as Kjell Sorme, president of Ericsson Asia-Pacific Ltd., puts it, is on the brink of an "everyday revolution."

Imagine your mobile phone as a video camera, radio, television, still camera, Web browser, fax machine, MP3 player and personal digital assistant rolled into one – a ubiquitous, multi-faceted gadget. Add to this multi-tasking the promise of faster speed: as Newsweek magazine estimates it, downloading Leo Tolstoy’s 1,300-page War and Peace will take a mere 1.6 seconds at optimum speed or 8.3 seconds while walking and 25 seconds in a moving car, compared to five minutes and 34 seconds using a WAP-enabled phone.

Thanks to 3G or third-generation mobile technologies, this vision will soon become a reality, and the information and communication technology (ICT) industry is abuzz with excitement over it. At the just-concluded ITU Telecom Asia 2000 here, 3G was on everyone’s lips, from vendors and solutions providers to service providers, a veritable buzzword for the new millennium.

The excitement is further hyped up by the world’s first commercial launching of 3G in May 2001 by NTT DoCoMo, whose highly successful, proprietary "i-mode" wireless Internet service – with 15 million subscribers to date – has taken the global mobile world by storm. Based on the W-CDMA third-generation mobile communications technology, the high-tech service, billed as FOMA (Freedom Of Mobile multimedia Access), "(will not only) deliver superior-quality voice communications, but will also fuel the dramatic evolution of i-mode and other Web-connection services, full-motion video image transmission, music and game distribution and other high-speed, large-capacity data communications," NTT DoCoMo declares.

A way of life

For Swedish giant Ericsson, the mobile Internet "means much more than just ‘making the Internet mobile,’" as it gives access to a whole slew of services and applications "wherever we are, whenever it suits us" from personal mobile devices. Call it the "anytime-anywhere" phenomenon. Ericsson’s Sorme says the mobile phone will become "personalized" in the process, with "situational services" that can be tailored to the location, preferences, needs and circumstances of the mobile user.

Ericsson sees three distinct, but related waves in the evolution toward true mobile Internet devices:

* Cutting the cord. This first wave, already in place, is making familiar online services mobile. For instance, using a laptop computer together with a cellular phone to send and receive e-mail or surf the Net.

* Internet in the pocket. Ericsson says this second wave has come, bringing Internet services to pocket mobile devices with applications specially adapted to work on these gadgets with small screens such as using WAP (Wireless Application Protocol). Although it brings full, convenient mobility, this wave still largely involves "traditional" Internet services such as online banking, e-mail and Web access.

* True mobile Internet. In this third wave, Ericsson believes the full potential of the mobile Internet will be realized, with services, applications and content becoming "situation-centric" or centering around the mobility, location and situation of the user.

Ericsson paints the picture: "For example, as you are walking along a town center street, your mobile device could flash a message saying, ‘It’s your mother’s birthday in a week’s time, and the department store two blocks down the street has a special offer on perfume.’ Such a service can be offered based on information about your current location, diary entries and personal preferences. It could even give you directions to the shop, and you could use your mobile device to pay for the perfume."

"Mobile Internet is an everyday thing," Sorme says. "Mobility will make the Internet personal."

AsPac sets the trend

While many European countries have taken the lead in 3G spectrum auctions, setting their sights on commercial launch in 2002, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) believes that the Asia-Pacific may be the "real trendsetter" for mobile communications.

In its "Asia-Pacific Telecommunication Indicators 2000," the ITU notes, for one, the region’s sheer diversity, its large market size and even larger market potential (China Mobile and NTT DoCoMo are the world’s two largest mobile firms in terms of number of subscribers).

The ITU also cites the region’s propensity to adapt to new technologies rapidly, evidenced by the number of mobile systems in use, compared to about one or two core mobile technologies in most regions of the world. While Europe has the digital GSM standard and the Americas have both digital AMPS and CDMA, the Asia-Pacific has over half a dozen mobile technologies in operation, in use by 185 million mobile users as of June 2000.

Another plus for the region is the highly touted success of NTT DoCoMo’s innovative platform – the i-mode. By contrast, the ITU says WAP, the i-mode’s European equivalent, "has been a relative disappointment."

The ITU considers the Philippines one of the most dynamic mobile markets in the region, noting that it emerged as the largest mobile market in Southeast Asia in 1999 and has the largest pre-paid market in the Asia-Pacific, with more than 80 percent of mobile users using airtime call cards. It adds that the number of mobile phone subscribers in the Philippines will pass the number of fixed line users this year. (It did a few weeks ago, according to Robert Etteborn, president and CEO of Ericsson Telecommunications Inc.). As of the end of May 2000, the ITU says the country’s mobile subscriber base has swelled to 4.3 million, from 2.85 million at the end of 1999.

Globe Telecom and Smart Communications, the two leading Filipino GSM service providers, are inching to launch the packet-based GPRS technology soon. GPRS, or the so-called 2.5G technology, basically a software upgrade on the existing GSM network, allows transmission speeds of up to 115 kilobits per second. 3G may not be far behind. The National Telecommunications Commission, in fact, has announced its plan to bid out 3G licenses sometime during the third quarter of 2001.

Other Asia-Pacific countries are in different stages in the 3G licensing process, either opting for auction or "beauty contest" (a selection procedure wherein bidding companies must meet a set of criteria) or a hybrid of both. While the ITU believes that the region "is poised to become a mobile powerhouse," it says the real challenge is how "to translate these advantages, by using mobile communication availability, for the millions of the region’s inhabitants (who) currently have no access." This early, former Undersecretary for Communications Josefina Lichauco, warns of what she calls a potential "generation gap."