3G Time Comes (7) 3G Is Nothing to Do with WLAN

No conflict will occur between the two in the field of mobile Internet access.

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A WLAN (Wireless LAN) operates through an AP (Access Point) and a network card. Within the coverage of the AP, all devices with a wireless network card can access the network.

With the continued upgrade of technical standards, the bandwidth of WLAN has increased substantially, while manufacturing costs have been dropping steadily. Today, the WLAN environment is available in many public areas, for example, airport lounges and cafe stores, and is very convenient to use.

This technology is derived from computer-related industries, while the 3G technology has it root in the telecom industry. As both support broadband wireless networks, a question emerges: are they competing, substitutable or complementary technologies to each other?

Supporters of the complementation argument believe that, as WLAN coverage is limited and that of 3G much larger, a user might need WLAN when present at a specific outdoor location (e.g., a cafe), but in non-fixed environments, (e.g., in vehicles, on road), 3G would be necessary.

That argument seems to have found a solution for the peaceful co-existence of the two technologies. However, in my view, they are neither competing, nor complementary technologies; they are totally different technologies and cannot be put together for comparison at all.

They are put in comparison because they both provide broadband Internet access in mobile environments. As I have discussed in my previous six articles, the Internet access will not be the mainstream function for 3G handsets. Without the element of the "Internet access", they suddenly loose the basis of comparison.

Don't forget that 3G handsets are intended for making and watching phone calls. Why do they have to compete with WLAN for the Internet access function? Why do we care so much about this function?

Even if they are put together to compare each other in terms of the mobile Internet access ability, WLAN and 3G have their own respective features. The majority of 3G Internet access devices are handsets, while a small part is smart phones. One thing in common of all these devices is they all look like handsets. As their screens are small, they have to browse websites specially designed for handsets.

When the user browses websites, he/she is usually in a relaxing condition. During a ride, say, he/she can kill time by viewing some soft contents. That is the reason why entertaining contents (e.g., image and ringtone download and games) have been the most popular items in the handset-based Internet. Handsets are not fit for processing job tasks.

The devices that enable the WLAN mobile Internet access will be computers and PDAs with the Internet access function. A common feature of these devices is that they all have big screens, which enable accessing Internet websites with standard browsers, and they do not suffer any loss of quality. To display contents with larger sizes, they need higher data rates.

Therefore, most users that access the Internet through that approach would sit tight in front of their computers, or using their PDAs to process business tasks. They seldom linger on soft contents. That is why "data searching" always ranks No.1 among the activities of netizens.

Consumers are well aware how to use their device in hand, although they might not realize why. From that stand of point, 3G and WLAN are still not competing or complementary technologies. They are totally different.

But, is it possible to develop a WLAN-based technology for making phone calls? Will that be a competing technology? As a matter of fact, such technologies have been in the market for a long time. However, due to restrictions in coverage and roaming ability, they can only enable local area communication, for example, being installed in offices as extension sets.

Such a WLAN-based VoIP is a mobile internet phone. It is a phone call, but it is transmitted through the Internet, and therefore is very cheap. Enabling all communication activities through the Internet is the goal of the entire world.

For the telecom industry, I can only say that, sooner or later, handsets will be used to dial VoIP calls. That is what really matters. The battlefield of the two similar technologies will be the voice communication, not the Internet access (the users will not care about whether the numbers they dial are VoIP numbers or not).

It seems, however, both 3G and WLAN have a long way to go before the introduction of the mobile VoIP technology. Currently, it is too early to say which one will win. (
2003/04/27 - By Digitalwall.com - Way to
China Internet/Telecom )

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- Today in History

The Mist of 3G in China (4) The Way to Survival for SP - 2007/04/22

Predictions on China Internet Market (8) War of Instant Messenger - 2006/04/23

3G Time Comes (7) 3G Is Nothing to Do with WLAN - 2003/04/27

3G Time Comes (6) Phones Don't Need to Be Smart - 2003/04/20

3G Time Comes (6) Phones Don't Need to Be Smart

Without market demand, smart phones will get nowhere.

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Thanks to the efforts of leading communication equipment manufacturers around the world, more and more functions are being added into handsets. Although the concept of the smart phone was raised many years ago, manufacturers are smart enough to see that it's not the time yet. What they are doing at the current stage is only to upgrade mono-color handsets into multimedia models to allow the presentation of more colorful images and more pleasant ringtones.

Will handsets eventually be integrated with PDAs? The answer will decide whether or not the two industries will confront each other one day. Microsoft has been dreaming that one day the handset market would be like today's PC market, where it could dominate with its operating systems. Handset manufacturers, of course, wish this day never comes.

What's interesting is that both parties are betting on the smart phone. Leveraging its existing advantages in application software, Microsoft has been pushing Windows Media Player and the mini-versions of many other familiar applications into handsets. It simply intends to turn the handset into a miniature computer.

The smart phone developed by handset manufacturers, however, looks less like computers. Even with some of the functions of the PDA and capable of playing online video programs, they seem more like handsets.

Difficult to explain as it is, the difference is obvious when the two kinds of handset are put together. A quote from Mr. Irwin Chen, the general manager of BenQ communication business unit seems to make sense: "A phone is a phone. It should look like a phone, not a PDA with an antenna."

The paradox is, since "a phone is a phone", what's the point of stuffing all the PDA functions into the handset? In my view, that is merely the wish of handset or PDA manufacturers themselves.

The advent of the 3G time means higher data rates for handsets, which, inevitably, will result in more Internet access behaviors (the size of user group and the question whether the Internet is the largest application of 3G have been discussed in my previous articles). However, it does not mean that consumers will require more functions for handsets.

If we were able to gather all consumers together, we would discover that what most consumers need in their daily life is just a "portable phone", which would enable them to "make phone calls" for now and "watch phone calls" in the 3G time.

Among this consumer group, some do have the requirement for the Internet service. They might want to have access to the data they need, to play games for time killing, or to download interesting images and ringtones. Yet few would use their handsets as a PDA.

The PDA is a tool for busy office people. Due to its operation interface and screen size, the smart phone will not be able to satisfy the demand of those people. In other words, putting the functions of the handset and PDA into one product would only hurt both.

Here is one typical example. Today many handsets offer the calendar function to allow users to keep records and arrange their agendas. But how many people are actually using it, which is the primary function of all PDAs? Ask your friends around you and you will get the answer immediately.

I believe that, one day when the price of the smart phone drops to a level considerably low, many people would buy; yet many of those "smart" functions will never be used. They buy because they feel more comfortable to pay the same price for something with extra functions.

The 3G handset will not be a thing like what Microsoft has envisioned: a large unified platform. Handsets are so popular because they have so many different models and configurations of functions, which could create numerous market segments to cater for the taste of different user groups. Handsets will never become commodities without individuality like computers.

Therefore, in the foreseeable future, the 3G handset will have the following positioning and applications:

-communication: as such handsets are used just for making phone calls, the fewer their functions are, the cheaper their prices. In the short term, such handsets would be good enough for most people.

-video communication: in addition to making phone calls, such handsets would also enable the video phone service. Yet they cannot be used to access the Internet, nor receive and send MMS (as MMS has to be enabled through the Internet), nor download images and ringtones.

-Internet access: such handsets will not offer the video phone service, but can be used to access the Internet and, therefore, to download images and ringtones as well as Java programs. Some, with built-in cameras, could even receive and send MMS. But not all such handsets will have built-in cameras.

-entertainment: these would be ultra-powerful handsets, which might better be called multimedia players. Having integrated a lot of functions including the video phone, Internet access, MMS and built-in Java, such handsets might be used by youngsters for entertainment in spare time.

-business: although functions like built-in schedule management, calendar and phonebook are more or less available in every handset today, they will be the highlights of such phones. Another special feature of such handsets will be the ability to transmit such data between handsets and computers. In addition, as most business people have the need for the email service out of their offices, such handsets will have to provide the Internet access too.

I once believed that, with the advent of the 3G time, all handsets would adopt a unified set of specifications, as it would reduce the resistance to the mobile Internet service. Now I have given up that, because it would be impossible from a practical point of view. In addition, consumers also have diversified demands for handsets.

Not everyone needs a smart phone. Nor will the handset become another kind of computer. It reminds me of another set of wireless communication standards derived from the sector of computer: WLAN.

In the next article, we will move onto another topic to talk about the relationship between 3G and WLAN. (
2003/04/20 - By Digitalwall.com - Way to
China Internet/Telecom )

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Prev : 3G Time Comes (5) Content - Killer App of Video Phone


Next : 3G Time Comes (7) 3G Is Nothing to Do with WLAN

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- Today in History

The Mist of 3G in China (4) The Way to Survival for SP - 2007/04/22

Predictions on China Internet Market (8) War of Instant Messenger - 2006/04/23

3G Time Comes (7) 3G Is Nothing to Do with WLAN - 2003/04/27

3G Time Comes (6) Phones Don't Need to Be Smart - 2003/04/20

3G Time Comes (5) Content - Killer App of Video Phone

Don’t jump to the conclusion that you don’t need it.

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Before the opening of the GSM market in Taiwan, many new companies were incorporated to compete for the licenses. In order to have a more accurate estimate toward the market potential for the service, they did a lot of market evaluations and surveys through professional consultancy service providers to learn consumers' opinions on the mobile communication.

To their surprise, a large portion of consumers said that they did not need the mobile communication service, as "there were public phone booths everywhere, why would they spend additional money on mobile phones?" Consumers thought there could not possibly be a need to make phone calls outside their homes or offices or, even if they did have such a need, they could use a public phone.

However, it only takes five years for the market to get saturated since the first appearance of the mobile phone in Taiwan. 24 million mobile phone numbers are sold in Taiwan, which is an island with a population of 23 million people. Marketing wars among mobile operators get white hot, while on the other hand, with fewer and fewer users, public telephone booths get eventually washed out of the market.

In addition to surprising all telecom experts recruited from the overseas market in the first years, the story also tells us that consumers often don't know what they really want. Particularly, when it comes to a new, intangible service, few consumers could tell why they would need it. Therefore, we need to be extra-careful when considering abut the video phone market.

Although the video telephony has been available for fixed telephone sets for a long time and there are very mature products (some depend on the Internet for the video data transmission, and others need nothing more than the access to conventional telephone sets), the application is used mostly in special occasions, for example, the video conference of transnational companies and communication with family members or relatives in other countries. General consumers rarely have such a requirement.

The 3G mobile communication, however, will bring the video phone into the life of ordinary people. For the first time, operators will have to develop a price structure suitable for the mass market. On March 3, Hutchison Telecommunications launched its 3G service in nine countries around the world. Its rate plan reveals that the rate of video phone calls is twice as much as that of voice calls.

But is the video phone service really needed? Will experts drop their jaws again?

The conventional telephone has been used for over a century, and people have been quite used to putting receivers on their ears to make phone calls. The pleasure of making phone calls often lies on the invisibility of the other party you are talking to. People want to have distance between one another. Before going to see each other face to face, we usually dress ourselves up and get a cleaner look and appoint a specific location for the meeting. That is for the sake of having distance.

However, the existence of the telephone has eliminated that distance. Whenever a phone rings, another person gets into your life immediately, interrupting what you are doing. Fortunately, that person cannot see you, so the call can proceed. Invisibility, it seems, is the last defense line for keeping distance between people.

Presumably, in this case, the application of video call is still limited. The video phone communication with intimate people (family members, friends, lovers, etc.) occurs randomly. On the other hand, in official occasions (video conference of corporations), a specific time will have to be set for any such communication in advance; otherwise it will be considered an impolite behavior to make a video phone call.

Therefore, at the beginning of the video phone service, or even in the majority time of its lifespan, the main application will be the human-to-machine communication, instead of the communication between people. It means that, for most people, the object of a video phone call is not a person, but the content of a video program.

For example, during the Iraq War, anyone who is concerned about the situation in the front might dial a video phone number with his/her 3G handset to watch news episodes rolling on the screen while waiting for an express train. If you want to be updated on your stock investment, you can dial a video phone number to watch the program of an analyst.

Pop star fans can watch the latest MV of their idols through the video phone, or maybe even talk face to face with the latter. While starting your car, you can dial a video phone number to have a look at the traffic flow on the highway. You will be able to do all these so long as you know how to dial a call - no need to know what the Internet is.

What should be clarified here is that the video phone is totally different from the video streaming. At the present time, most video applications being talked about in the industry are based on the video steaming. To be more specific, consumers will have to access and browse the Internet with their handsets and select their favorite movie contents to get the video programs transmitted onto their handsets.

In other words, the video streaming is an Internet application. As I mentioned in my first article, the video phone service adopts the circuit switch mode, which charges subscribers in accordance with the time length of their calls, while the mobile Internet access and video streaming are of the packet switch mode, which charges subscribers in accordance with the packets of transmitted data.

While trying desperately to move their technologies onto the Internet platform, most system developers and handset manufacturers forget that by nature, handsets are phones, not computers. Compare the user experience of both modes: watching video programs, which only requires the knowledge of how to dial a call versus doing the same but having to know how to access the Internet. Which one do you think most people will choose?

In addition, with the current price structure, a 64k, 1-minute video program transmitted to a handset through the video streaming (with the packet-based billing) would be 60 times as expensive as that through the video phone (with the time length-based billing). Who will use such expensive service like video streaming?

In the next article, I will talk about 3G handsets: "handsets need not to be smart". You may want to get warm up with the following two websites: http://www.three.co.uk, which is the website of the first 3G service provider in the world; and http://www.3g.co.uk, where a large amount of 3G information and news are available. (
2003/04/13 - By Digitalwall.com - Way to
China Internet/Telecom )

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Prev : 3G Time Comes (4) Video Phone - the Killer Application


Next : 3G Time Comes (6) Phones Don't Need to Be Smart

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- Today in History

The Mist of 3G in China (3) Low-End Customers Are King - 2007/04/15

Predictions on China Internet Market (7) Web 2.0 Economy - 2006/04/16

How to Sell an Apple: A Classic Case of High-tech Marketing - 2005/04/10

3G Time Comes (5) Content - Killer App of Video Phone - 2003/04/13

3G Time Comes (4) Video Phone - the Killer Application

Without the video phone function, that would not be a real 3G.

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After our discussions in the previous article, we are now aware that "communication" is the primary function that people expect from the mobile phone, as well as the biggest source of revenue for mobile communication operators. The mobile Internet will continue to thrive, but essentially, what 3G will have to address from the very beginning is people's need for communication.

We can categorize communication into the following models:

- Synchronized: Both parties have to be online simultaneously. The response of one party will be received instantaneously by the other, who will have to respond immediately. This is a model adopted for conventional telephone calls and Internet-based video conferencing.

- Semi-synchronized: Both parties need to be online simultaneously, but do not have to respond to the message from the other immediately. It is impossible for convention telephone calls, but now a reality on the Internet, thanks to instant messenger applications such as ICQ.

- Asynchronized: It is not required for both parties to be online simultaneously. Email and SMS belong to this model. The sending party should be online when sending the message, but may get offline as soon as it is done. The receiving party does not have to respond immediate. Voice mail is also one of the services of this model.

Which of the above three models is the most used one in human communication? It is an interesting question. The answer is: it depends on the platform used.

On the telephone platform (both wired and wireless), synchronized communication is the primary model. In terms of the experience of the mobile phone, people make phone calls more often than SMS. In the meantime, the usage of voice mail remains marginal and is declining each year. That indicates for most people, synchronized communication is still the largest application for telephone.

On the Internet platform (through computers or PDAs), however, asynchronized communication has the upper hand. One typical example is the extreme popularity of the email service. Comparatively, real-time communication is a much smaller application.

What, then, is the essence of the 3G handset? Is it a telephone platform or an Internet platform?

In my view, the 3G handset, with its larger screen, more displayed colors and higher data rates, is trying hared taking a route toward the Internet platform. Nevertheless, it cannot get rid of its own nature as a mobile phone. Consumers have a clear concept about handsets: they are phones instead of computers.

Therefore, the largest application of a 3G handset will definitely be synchronized communication, which will be practiced mainly through the video phone (the upgraded version of voice communication) service.

The so-called video phone is a service that allows both parties to see each other with handset during a call. As almost every 3G handset has a built-in camera or video cam, the video image transmission will not be a problem. It will be the way as you use a conventional handset: dial the number and the video transmission starts automatically when the call is connected.

In previous articles, we have mentioned that there are two communication modes for handsets: the circuit switch mode and the packet switch mode. Like conventional phones, the circuit switch mode is adopted for the video phone communication. For the mobile Internet, the packet switch mode is used, which charges subscribers in accordance with the volume of data transmission.

In very plain words, the revenue of mobile communication operators from services of the circuit switch mode (including the voice and video communication) will be much more than that from services of the packet switch mode (including the mobile Internet and MMS).

Video phone, instead of the mobile Internet, will be the main driving force of revenue growth for communication operators, because the former is much easier to use - easy enough for a 70-year-old grandpa, but no 70-year-old grandpa uses the Internet.

We often see in movies people in the future world watching the image of each other when making phone calls. Do not take it as a scene that occurs only in movies. It is going to be a reality in your life by the end of 2003. It took us five years to get accustomed to making phone calls on road. Pretty soon, we will get used to calling people while looking at screens.

But here is the question. Think about it: if you have a 3G video phone, do you want to be seen by the other end when making a phone call, or are you still able to tell your boss that you are at the office of a client when you are actually in the cinema?

If you take for granted that the largest application of the video phone is to facilitate the communication between people and that technology could enable this by leaps and bounds, you are wrong again. In the next article, I will discuss that the content is the largest application of the video phone service. (
2003/04/06 - By Digitalwall.com - Way to
China Internet/Telecom )

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Prev : 3G Time Comes (3) SMS, Email and MMS


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- Today in History

Great Changes in Wireless Internet Industry (4) Apple's Strategy - 2008/04/06

The Mist of 3G in China (2) TD-SCDMA is a Hot Potato - 2007/04/08

The Mist of 3G in China (1) 3G Makes No Profit - 2007/04/01

Predictions on China Internet Market (6) Community Services - 2006/04/09

Media, Community, and Blog (5) The Power of Media - 2005/04/03

3G Time Comes (4) Video Phone - the Killer Application - 2003/04/06