(keitai-l) Re: Blip, blip, zap! 3G in Europe & roaming...

From: <mats_at_mobiledreams.com>
Date: 10/12/01
Message-ID: <20011012115805.10748.cpmta@c017.sfo.cp.net>
Benedict Evans wrote:
>Oh, the European operators will refuse to sell single-
>mode handsets. 

I totally agree. All the European 3G phones will be 3G-GSM dual mode from the start when they finally come out in late 2002. This includes not only Nokia and Sony-Ericsson but also the "European phones" from NEC, Mitsubishi/Trium, and Panasonic. European users are completely used to international (& national) roaming, and would not accept to have their service limited. Even consumers.

These phones will work on at least one Japanese 3G network, since J-Phone are buying end-to-end 3G networks from Ericsson for the Kanto-Tokai-Kansai area and from Nokia for some Northern and Sourthern areas. I'd be surprised if they didn't work on DoCoMo as well - DoCoMo hasn't invested in KPN to later stand there as the non-compatible operator.

Benjamin Kowarsch wrote: 
> DoCoMo has a GSM/PHS handset and GSM/PHS 
> roaming in it's offerings for quite some time 
> already, and the handset is an NEC handset. 

benjamin wrote:
>That is quite interesting, given that PHS does not
>have a roaming protocol nor any mode/means to 
>interoperate with GSM/MAP. Possible, NTT  
>have hacked something, but perhaps this follows the  >rent-a-handset-and-roam model by which manual/static 
>call diversion is used to deliver calls
 
I don't know the handset, but it could also be "2 handsets in one", where the user has 2 subscriptions and chooses manually which "phone" to use; at least that's how DoCoMo made (still make?) their PDC/PHS phones.

Benjamin Kowarsch wrote
>Maybe Nokia have simply been waiting for signals from 
>their customers.ŽAfter all, networks in Europe have 
>been very slow, even hesitant to roll out GPRS, which 
>isn't exactly an encouragement for a manufacturer to  
>bring out GPRS phones. 
 
Chicken-and-egg situation, but I'm convinced it's the manufacturers who're late. A few operators (like Vodafone Europolitan) have had their GPRS networks up for 10 months now, but plenty of other operators complain they can't roll out because of the handset shortage - a huge part of their users are Nokia fans so they've delayed the launch even if other makers' had their phones out. Nokia has lost some market share recently and I'm sure it's not intentional.

About small screens: As a consumer it does suck to be back in Europe and have to choose among all these small, black-and-white screens. But it's a different thing to be a Japanese handset maker and get a one-off order for 100-500,000 handsets from DoCoMo and another to independently plan to sell 5-10 million phones directly to end users in 100 countries. These handset makers carry all the risk, they carry the extra cost, their phones are expensive to the end users (because they're not being subsidized as much by the operators), and they have to be able to buy all the components. I want to get one of the first color screen phones but - as a consumer - I wish DoCoMo was here to subsidy it for me!!! (well there'd be some bad sides to that as well)

/Mats

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Received on Fri Oct 12 14:47:29 2001