Push to Bring Mobile Broadband to the Masses Gets More Coordinated & Pace Quickens

Sharon Armbrust | October 17, 2006, 04:27 PM

Bemoaning the slow uptake of mobile broadband and mobile video has been a theme song of 2006, a tune we think got trendy too fast given the widespread lack of opportunity consumers have had to sample mobile broadband, either at all or in any manner that renders a rewarding experience. But that ability to sample enjoyably—which is a proven lead-in to purchasing—could gain speed pretty quickly in 2007 based on a flurry of recent initiatives from the GSM fraternity and assorted vendors and carriers with fast-tracked projects for enterprise and consumer markets.

At the Intel Developer conference in San Francisco at the end of September, Intel touted its upcoming Intel Centrino Duo mobile platform with assorted mobile connectivity options. In partnership with Nokia, Intel will embed HSDPA mini-card modems in laptops. Embedded modems will represent a reported 17% of the market in 2006, and vendors indicate that once that gets above 20%-25%, there is a hockey-stick acceleration in uptake and decline in costs.
At the Symbian SmartPhone Show this week, both SlingMedia and Sony put forward services allowing at-home video subcriptions to go mobile via place-shifted streaming. Sling said it will deploy a Symbian based SlingPlayer in 4Q and Sony is putting its LocationFree software in the SonyEricsson P990 Smartphone.

Vodafone is doing its part to drive the market by introducing 10 new 3G handsets for the Christmas selling season—including five at entry-level pricing and six souped-up speed HSDPA phones from Motorola and Samsung.

Out of the 3GSM conference in Singapore this week came two announcements aimed at juicing the consumer and business uptakes of all flavors of mobile broadband.

On the consumer side of the ledger, in a “3G for All” campaign, a dozen international GSM carriers have set a date of the Feb. 2007 3GSM Congress in Barcelona to announce which vendor they’ve chosen to bring to market a 3G phone at well below the low end of 3G handset prices today. An RFP has gone out from the GSM trade association on behalf of Cingular Wireless, Globe Telecom, Hutchison 3G, KTF, MTN, Orange, Smart, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telenor, T-Mobile and Vodafone. The mandate is for a 3G phone that supports internet browsing, mobile TV, advanced messaging. And the punch of 12 carriers who together serve over 620 mil. subscribers is intended to give manufacturers the scale they would need to simultaneously meet both the advanced service and low price criteria in the RFP.

For the business market, the GSMA issued guidelines for implementing HSDPA for 3G in notebooks, covering essential 3G integration elements for functionality, features, security aspects, compliance and testing. Spearheading this initiative is a group of carriers and vendors —carriers Cingular, O2, Orange, TeliaSonera, TIM, T-Mobile, Vodafone, and manufacturers and mobile software suppliers Check Point, Dell, Fujitsu, Gemalto, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft, Option Wireless, Novatel Wireless, Qualcomm, Sierra Wireless and Sony Ericsson.

Content owners have already bought into the mobile platform. But getting mobile subs in contact with their programming has been a sticking point. MobiTV ceo Phil Alvelda says most people aren’t even aware they can get broadcast TV on their phones, even if they do have the capability. Even so, MobiTV’s ranks, now over 1 mil., are growing at their fastest pace.

If the enabled devices continue to multiply at the rate they have been introduced in recent weeks and phone manufacturers keep improving on the one click interfaces that get subscribers to the mobile internet and video malls with ease…sometimes by mistake…we’re betting the uptick in consumption won’t be that far behind.