[Rolo]

Since its 1 year after the UMTS post on GFY, then I would like to do a little update on this technology for those who have not had the option to follow in which direction this will go.

Current UMTS cellphones or 3G cellphones are not selling very good. The problem is that the cellphones are expensive, the models are big compare with normal cellphones, the UMTS coverage is only available in very selected areas - will take years and cost BILLIONS before there is ok coverage, price for using the video part of the 3G cellphones are alot more expensive than what people are used to pay, and the only thing which are really different between UMTS and GSM is bandwidth.
Now one of the features phone companies think will make these hot selling is the video phone, where you can see the person you are talking with, however people have been able to do this for years on the internet with a webcam, or back in the 80s with standard video phones, but still people write e-mails, sms, icq, and do normal phonecalls, so why will people start to change how they interact, just because their cellphone can send video?

Another problem for UMTS is that other technologies are closing in. Ex. An italian phone company have delevoped software so they can send video to the "old" GSM cellphones, ofcourse not with as great bandwidth as UMTS, but good enough so people will think they have a "2.5G" cellphone which can show video etc.. And the "hotspot" wireless internet in the cities will be much faster, and cheaper than UMTS.

So IMHO, UMTS will be an uphill battle for phone companies, and content providers. Ofcourse in time there will be a market, but it will take years and leave alot of companies with huge losses.



Last edited by Rolo at Oct 28 2003, 03:27 AM