Three years ago, the euphoria surrounding 3G resulted in operators spending billions of dollars in licensing fees, solely based on exponential calculations of growth in subscribers and average revenues per user (ARPUs). But to their disappointment, some operators now find it nearly impossible to recover their investments and most have delayed their plans to deploy 3G, according to a new study by research firm Allied Business Intelligence (ABI).
Since the launch of its pioneer 3G-based WCDMA services in October 2001, Japanese mobile operator NTTDoCoMo has been able to garner only about 155,000 subscribers through January 2003. Though many technical improvements have been made, deployments of 3G will face further hurdles as operators continually refine their data services. Further, though primarily complementary in nature, EDGE and Wi-Fi technologies may influence the deployment of some 3G networks.
ABI research indicates that the major hurdles for implementation of 3G have been the following:
"Operators may be forced to upgrade to the 3G network in the long run, not because of its promise of higher data speeds, but due to an expected thirst for voice capacity," says Kenil Vora, ABI analyst and author of the report."
Posted to the site on 3rd April 2003
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/8622.php