MILAN.- It had a catchy name, seemed like a good cause and was going to do wonders for bridging the much-talked-about digital divide between the rich and poor.
But was the «3G for All» campaign to promote the production of an inexpensive, feature-rich third-generation cellphone missing the point about why most people still use their phones only to talk and send text messages?
The GSM Association, a trade group that represents 700 cellphone operators in more than 200 countries, kicked off its ad campaign in June of last year. The goal was to encourage the use of 3G networks around the world by endorsing a handset that would be within the budget constraints of many more cellphone users.
T-Mobile, Telefónica, Vodafone, Orange and eight other cellphone companies took part in a panel that used criteria like functionality, usability and price to judge 19 handset entries made by eight manufacturers. If the 12 operators could agree on a common set of requirements, the idea went, then the manufacturer would be able to cut costs by producing a larger number of phones. More people would then be able to afford the phones, and the riddle of why nobody wanted to use data services on their phone would be solved.
One small detail – many people already have 3G handsets in Europe, Asia and the United States and don’t use them for very much of anything but talking and sending text messages. There are a few illustrious exceptions like Japan and South Korea.
«More and more handsets in Western Europe are already 3G enabled, but whether people are making use of the 3G services is a different thing entirely and, in fact, they aren’t,» said Jessica Sandin, the head of the mobile practice at the London-based consultancy Fathom Partners. «One of the problems has been the cost, but often it’s that consumers don’t know how much they will be charged when they use data services.»
Flat-rate plans, which have been the norm in the United States for years, are entering the mainstream in Europe and that may soon lead people to use more 3G services there, Sandin said. But other problems persist, like the perceived or actual lack of compelling content and the difficulty consumers have in finding what they are looking for.
The cellphone association announced the «3G for All» winner in February, the U250 made by LG, and the handset has been available since June. The U250 is slick, has a large color display, expandable memory, Bluetooth and a 1.3-megapixel camera, and it plays various audio and video formats. The phone is available in more than 20 countries that run the spectrum from advanced markets like Germany, Sweden and Italy to emerging economies like Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.
LG has refused to say what it sells the phone for to the phone companies, which adjust the price to specific markets and offer different incentives to lower the cost to consumers. The association has said the goal is to have a phone that costs 30 percent less than the typical entry-level 3G phone.
Hutchison’s Italian unit, 3 Italia, sells the phone for €49, or $67, for new customers who transfer the phone number they have with another Italian operator. In Spain, Yoigo sells the phone for €9 to clients who sign a contract and €49 for those who want to use it with a prepaid card. Smart Communications, the largest cellphone company in the Philippines, sells the phone for the equivalent of about €100.
Will the people who can now afford to buy a cheap 3G phone be more apt to use the new services – the same services that richer people who already have 3G phones have, to a large extent, shunned? And wouldn’t the association’s energy and resources have been better spent encouraging members to lower prices and make data pricing plans easier to understand in the first place?
«We can’t and don’t get involved in the retail prices set by operators,» said David Pringle, the spokesman for the association. «Operators have a vested interest in setting the price of 3G services at a spot where people use those services.»
Being one of the many with a 3G phone that I am afraid to use for anything but calls and text messages (for fear I will have to get a second mortgage to pay my phone bill), here’s hoping the operators find that spot soon.
Fuente: International Herald Tribune
