3G Mobile Phones
Posted by: MichaelC on 07 April 2003
Does anyone know what the point is of these new phones?
Mike
Mike
Posted on: 07 April 2003 by Simon Jenkins
Michael,
At the moment, not a lot unless you live in London. More seriously, they offer a raft of multi-media applications,such as video calls, which 3 are using as their main selling point, as well as various other multimedia apps.
The three main howevers at the moment are :
1) The cost, the handsets and the tariffs are expensive.
2) Coverage. Unless your in a big city your only going to be able to use the old 2G services for some time.
3) Battery life. A 30 minute video call will drain the battery completly. I guess it's going to be a year or so until you start to see decent battery life on the handsets.
Hope this helps a little.
Simon
At the moment, not a lot unless you live in London. More seriously, they offer a raft of multi-media applications,such as video calls, which 3 are using as their main selling point, as well as various other multimedia apps.
The three main howevers at the moment are :
1) The cost, the handsets and the tariffs are expensive.
2) Coverage. Unless your in a big city your only going to be able to use the old 2G services for some time.
3) Battery life. A 30 minute video call will drain the battery completly. I guess it's going to be a year or so until you start to see decent battery life on the handsets.
Hope this helps a little.
Simon
Posted on: 08 April 2003 by seagull
They might at least end that immortal conversion...
"Hello, I'm on the train..."
because the caller at the other end will be able to see that you are.
It would also end the lie "Hello, I'm on the train..." when you're actually in the pub (or in Nick's case, the pub next door...)
"Hello, I'm on the train..."
because the caller at the other end will be able to see that you are.
It would also end the lie "Hello, I'm on the train..." when you're actually in the pub (or in Nick's case, the pub next door...)
Posted on: 08 April 2003 by Simon Jenkins
Nick,
None of the operators really know where the money to repay the license fee is going to come from.
Several of the big european operators are not far off going bust. If it wasn't for their governments then I'm fairly certain the Deutsche Telecom and France Telecom wouldn't survive the next few years. Sure they are both making an operating profit, but barely enough to service the huge debts they've run up.
The whole thing has been a bit of a fiasco. Greedy governments, operators and suppliers who had no real understanding of the technology. Most telecom network operators still have little or no understanding of packet switched networks.
It'll be interesting in the next few years to see how many of the companies survive. Hopefully enough so that I can find a job.
Simon
None of the operators really know where the money to repay the license fee is going to come from.
Several of the big european operators are not far off going bust. If it wasn't for their governments then I'm fairly certain the Deutsche Telecom and France Telecom wouldn't survive the next few years. Sure they are both making an operating profit, but barely enough to service the huge debts they've run up.
The whole thing has been a bit of a fiasco. Greedy governments, operators and suppliers who had no real understanding of the technology. Most telecom network operators still have little or no understanding of packet switched networks.
It'll be interesting in the next few years to see how many of the companies survive. Hopefully enough so that I can find a job.
Simon
Posted on: 08 April 2003 by Stewart B
The point of these phones is to rob you of more money and make you throw away the phone you have got. I thought phohes were for talking to people, why anyone would want to see my ugly mug when they are talking to me god only knows. If they want to do tha then have a face to face, it is more productive. It's just another gimmick to get more money out of you. I use a mobile for business and it is an invaluable tool, but I do not want my clients or other for that matter seeing where I am or what I am doing. The blessing of a mobile is that you can answer it from anywhere and the client doesn't need to know where you are.
Regards
Stewart
Regards
Stewart
Posted on: 08 April 2003 by seagull
quote:
Originally posted by Stewart B:
... I do not want my clients or other for that matter seeing where I am or what I am doing.
couldn't agree more...
We were told this story when the mother of a toddler was wondering at what age she would have to stop wiping her youngsters bum.
A friend of ours recently got a phone call from her son (14), she was at work at the time.
"Mum, we've run out of bog roll."
"So, what do you expect me to do about it? I'm at work. There's some in the cupboard under the stairs, go and get some for yourself."
"Yes, but I've just done a dump and there's no bog roll..."
click ... brrr....
Posted on: 08 April 2003 by John Channing
Does anyone know what the point is of these new phones?
First off take a look at the three website. I am currently awaiting the delivery of an NEC606 phone which I have on a free two month trial. As well as video calls, the 3G phones also offer GPS services allowing you to navigate to the nearest pub and higher speed internet connections. I have yet to be convinced that 3G phones have a "killer app" that will make them indispensible, but according to people who have used them, video call are more useful than you might imagine. Hopefully I should be able to report some real World experience later this week because most of my family should also have 3G phones.
John
First off take a look at the three website. I am currently awaiting the delivery of an NEC606 phone which I have on a free two month trial. As well as video calls, the 3G phones also offer GPS services allowing you to navigate to the nearest pub and higher speed internet connections. I have yet to be convinced that 3G phones have a "killer app" that will make them indispensible, but according to people who have used them, video call are more useful than you might imagine. Hopefully I should be able to report some real World experience later this week because most of my family should also have 3G phones.
John
Posted on: 08 April 2003 by matthewr
I had a play with an NEC 606 a few weeks ago and it was pretty cool. Took it to a West Ham game and watched video highlights of the earlier games at half time and (eventually) watched the highlights of the West Ham game a couple of hours after the final whistle.
Also made a video from my seat in the stand which was meant to be the teams running out as the crowd sang an immensely moving rendition of "Bubbles" (guaranteed to bring a tear to your eye) but it only seemed to want to do 10 secs of footage before shutting off so I've got a short shot of the players tunnel. I did manage to e-mail the video to myself which was pretty cool but unfortunately its in some weird MP4 variant which Real Player and Windows Media cannot play and Quick Time and DivX can sort of play but without the sound.
I also managed to use the internet to get the half time scores as well which is something my 2G WAP phone has managed successfulyl about twice.
Overall it was quite neat but I suspect the novelty will wear off fairly quikly and they are obviously very expensive for the time being. Also I found the handset rather clunky and given the prices I wouldn't want one if I had to pay for it.
In a year or so though it might well be cheaper and there will certainly be more handset choice -- a cheaper tariff and a killer phone/PDA could be quite tempting. In the meantime strictly for early adopter techno freaks and Nathan Barley media whores to wave oestentatiously around Shoreditch bars ;-)
Matthew
Also made a video from my seat in the stand which was meant to be the teams running out as the crowd sang an immensely moving rendition of "Bubbles" (guaranteed to bring a tear to your eye) but it only seemed to want to do 10 secs of footage before shutting off so I've got a short shot of the players tunnel. I did manage to e-mail the video to myself which was pretty cool but unfortunately its in some weird MP4 variant which Real Player and Windows Media cannot play and Quick Time and DivX can sort of play but without the sound.
I also managed to use the internet to get the half time scores as well which is something my 2G WAP phone has managed successfulyl about twice.
Overall it was quite neat but I suspect the novelty will wear off fairly quikly and they are obviously very expensive for the time being. Also I found the handset rather clunky and given the prices I wouldn't want one if I had to pay for it.
In a year or so though it might well be cheaper and there will certainly be more handset choice -- a cheaper tariff and a killer phone/PDA could be quite tempting. In the meantime strictly for early adopter techno freaks and Nathan Barley media whores to wave oestentatiously around Shoreditch bars ;-)
Matthew
Posted on: 08 April 2003 by Simon Jenkins
The SMS boom happened because of the introduction of pre-paid, and caught the operators and suppliers completly by surprise. Most of them have been playing catchup on capacity for the last four years.
MMS is being pushed to try and generate revenues, but at the moment it's to expensive and enough people have enabled handsets. Once the handset numbers reach critical mass, say 5 million or so in the UK, then the volumes should increase, the price of an MMS message come down.
Also at the moment nobody could cope with an MMS explosion in usage. It's still very much in it's first generation, and the current systems could not cope with even a tenth of the volume of SMS usage.
Simon
MMS is being pushed to try and generate revenues, but at the moment it's to expensive and enough people have enabled handsets. Once the handset numbers reach critical mass, say 5 million or so in the UK, then the volumes should increase, the price of an MMS message come down.
Also at the moment nobody could cope with an MMS explosion in usage. It's still very much in it's first generation, and the current systems could not cope with even a tenth of the volume of SMS usage.
Simon
Posted on: 08 April 2003 by JohanR
Here in Sweden (we are a big country on the map), the 3G system, if implemented as planned, will use up the power of ONE WHOLE nuclear powerplant! FYI, the politicians are talking about shutting them down.
The whole thing is just silly. In a couple of years time the comedians will be fully occupied with telling jokes about how it failed.
JohanR
The whole thing is just silly. In a couple of years time the comedians will be fully occupied with telling jokes about how it failed.
JohanR
Posted on: 27 November 2003 by Tony Lockhart
Well, I've had my Motorola A920 for 7 weeks now, and I love it! Anyone else joined 3G?
Tony
Tony