June 6 2003
 

Mobile phone operators have spent billions of dollars in licensing fees for third-generation wireless networks based on expected exponential subscriber growth and average revenues per user, but things haven't worked out as planned.

According to Allied Business Intelligence, some operators have found it difficult to recover their investments, and most have delayed their plans to deploy 3G. A new report by the Oyster Bay, N.Y.-based research firm points to Japanese mobile operator and 3G pioneer NTT DoCoMo as an example. Since the launch of its 3G WCDMA services in October 2001, DoCoMo has been able to garner only about 330,000 subscribers as of March 2003.

ABI said that though efforts to stabilize the technical hurdles have paid off, recent launches in Western Europe may face similar teething problems. Further, the report said that EDGE and Wi-Fi technologies may influence the deployment of some 3G networks.

"Operators may be forced to upgrade to the 3G network in the long run, due to an expected thirst for voice capacity and not necessarily because of its higher data speeds," says Kenil Vora, ABI analyst and author of the report.

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