3G Will Fuel Future Mobile Growth... If Anyone Actually Signs Up
from the well-that's-inconvenient dept
Here's yet another bizarre and somewhat pointless study suggesting that the mobile market's best bet for growth is in 3G offerings -- as if anyone was seriously expecting that the growth opportunities were in older, more obsolete technologies. Clearly, the growth opportunities are to move people towards 3G systems. However, it might not be as easy as the report makes it out to be. After that initial non-prediction, it goes on to suggest the typical huge growth numbers that these analysts love to come up with. There's just one problem... a completely different study shows that people haven't quite figured out why they need 3G, and they're not rushing to sign up. Even those who understand the benefits are confused and somewhat scared about all the features on the phones. While some operators are realizing this and trying to do a better job training new users before they walk out the door with a phone, others are simply clueless. The real issue is that too many carriers still seem to be doing 3G for 3G's sake. That is, they're doing it because they know that's their best bet for growth... but they haven't stopped to figure out what people actually use mobile phones for, and how a 3G offering might really be valuable.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Even the early adopters can't buy 3G
Also, even if you did figure out how to buy it, you would need at least two separate devices to use a laptop with it -- I'm not aware of a single phone or PC Card that supports GPRS, EDGE, and UMTS.
When early adopters are perfectly willing to spend $80 a month on 3G data, and the carriers can't sell it to them, things don't bode well for rapid uptake.
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Re: Even the early adopters can't buy 3G
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Re: Even the early adopters can't buy 3G
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Carriers are at fault
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