(keitai-l) Re: Whats wrong in Europe?

What's wrong with Europe ?

Here's a European perspective :

I-mode delays - Despite the soundings by DoCoMo that European I-mode delays
have
been caused by GPRS technicalities and handset shortages, most rumours
centre around
the strained relations between DoCoMo and European partners (KPN et al).
Recently
KPN have experienced some financial difficulty, and as you know - I-mode
requires
a significant amount of resources to make it work.

UMTS delays - well this is not particularly confined only to Europe.
Vodafone's recent
announcement to cut the spending on base stations has been exacerbated by
the soundings
made by Hutchison3G (DoCoMo/KPN/Hutchison Telecom venture in the UK) that
there may be
some delays in their UMTS rollout. Vodafone's approach is quite different to
DoCoMo's -
and I'm not saying either is better. Vodafone's strategy is one of M&A and
centres around
creating a world voice network leading then on to GPRS and then finally 3G.
Being quite
cash-rich and ultimately sitting pretty they don't feel the real urgency to
move to a
dat-centric model as with I-mode (which is a shame for the wireless
community as a whole).

Companies folding - that's the backlash from the roller-coaster ride that
was initiated by
the dot.com boom back in 98.

That's the summary. In short GPRS will be a major feature for the next two
years. It looks
like finally carriers here are focusing on developing compelling content
rather than technology.
Which, inevitably , has been the success of i-mode.

Graham

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-----Original Message-----
From: keitai-l-bounce@appelsiini.net
[mailto:keitai-l-bounce@appelsiini.net]On Behalf Of Juergen Specht
Sent: 24 July 2001 03:25
To: keitai-l@appelsiini.net
Subject: (keitai-l) Whats wrong in Europe?


Hi Keitai-l,

lately I hear only wireless horror stories from europe.
i-mode delayed, GPRS not working as expected, UMTS delayed,
no handsets available, companys close one after the other
and even German wireless programmers ask me for a job.

But since it is as complicated to get real insider
information from Japan as it is complicated to get
Japanese insider information from Europe, I wonder
if somebody can give us a short summary whats going
on.

Thanks in advance!

Juergen
--
Juergen Specht [Nooper.com - Mobile Services Inc.] http://nooper.com
For a better i-mode experience. NooperLabs: http://nooper.co.jp/labs/


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