Perhaps that's why Cingular held out so long before scrapping plans to grab an early lead in this country with the introduction of next-generation services in California and Nevada. It wasn't until Thursday that Cingular acknowledged to The Associated Press that the June launch was being delayed. In fact, it wasn't clear which handset Cingular hoped to use for its impending launch until two weeks ago, when Motorola said its Timeport P7389i would be featured in the now-aborted rollout. Handset makers have been similarly vague about the arrival of new phones. A second phone introduced in Europe, made by Ericsson, was quickly recalled to fix a software glitch and recently began shipping again.
Success stories do exist with the new technologies.
In South Korea, more than 200,000 next-generation handsets made by Samsung have been sold since last fall, when a major carrier began offering speedier wireless connections. Well it works, it's on the network now. And a week earlier, British Telecom's wireless unit delayed the launch of a next-generation network on the Isle of Man. Both of those examples involve more advanced technologies than the ones U.S. and European carriers are looking to deploy this year. Still, there have been ample signs that all's not quite right in the headstrong hustle to roll out new services in this country.