The industry has declared that 2002 will be the year when a 'big bang' will usher in a new era of mobile multimedia communications. Carriers have paid top dollar for licences and will want to recoup that money. One problem is that the speed of emerging services such as GPRS and Edge is turning out to be slower than promised. So the delivered speed of 3G and 2.5G services will be less than initial publicity suggested. Nokia makes the point that even a lower data rate is still a revolution, because it is mobile.
Battery life is also likely to be a problem.
The telecoms carriers' profit plans have had to be changed, because spectrum licence fees are higher than expected. Payback is five years, from the delivery,' said a spokesman. Mobile services will allow firms to beam information and advertising to users automatically, based on where they are. However, most observers agree that a must-have application has yet to be developed. We don't market our phones to children,' said Martin Sandelin, Nokia's senior vice-president of corporate marketing, responding to the UK government's advice that young people could face a risk from radiation.