WiFi to the rescue of 3G

Outside of Japan and a few Asian countries, the 3G market appears to be suffering a 'Catch 22' situation: Few users are venturing on-line with their mobile devices due to lack of content and few content providers are investing in the mobile market because of poor user adoption.

It is estimated that mobile telecommunication companies have spent in the region of 200 billion Euro on 3G licences and network infrastructure. Yet at the end of 2005, only 2% of the two billion mobile phone users around the world currently subscribe to 3G services (even though 9% of mobile phones sold in 2005 were 3G handsets).

A number of anecdotal reports suggest 3G subscribers are not overly enamoured with the new technology: bulky phones, patchy coverage, and complicated tariffs are frequently cited as the primary turn-offs.

Odd as it might seem, WiFi technology could well kick-start the floundering 3G market, based upon the presumption that users of wireless hotspots will become addicted to the broadband speeds and the untethered access afforded by this technology. They would then be much more amenable to the idea of a combined WiFi/3G tariff from their mobile phone service network provider.

Of course the price must be right and Web site owners must also re-engineer their sites to accommodate small form factor devices, Flash mobile technology that Adobe recently acquired when it bought Macromedia, for instance.

Perhaps the mobile communications industry should encourage the development of hybrid 3G/WiFi phones and promote wireless hotspots to bring about a 3G revolution. It is a risky strategy for sure, but nothing they have done to date appears to have worked.