[3GScottishUser]

[Dow Jones] Hutchison (0013.HK) still long way short of critical mass in 2 key countries of Italy, UK; market share of about 15% in each country would be key to turning operations profitable, says Julian Hewett of telecoms consultancy Ovum; latest numbers show Hutch has 3.2 million subscribers in UK, well short of 9 million to reach 15% market share point; has 4.5 million in Italy, just over half way to 8.7 million needed. Italy subscribers growing strongly, adding 962,000 subscribers in 5 months to August but UK added just 193,000 subscribers in period despite heavy spending on customer acquisition costs. "It's a war of attrition," says Hewett, "and Hutchison will have to continue to do battle to win subscribers."

http://www.newratings.com/analyst_news/article_1145846.html

[Hands0n]

Their problem is the size and range of 3G handsets, something that the others do not suffer from in 2G-land. Noone is making big inroads to 3G at the moment because of the handset issues. The likes of the Samsung Z500 go a long way to improving the situation but that is only the one manufacturer. The "Coming Soon" handsets like the Nokia 6280 and Motorola V3x will do something to re-dress the imbalance, but it really is too little too late for 2005.

I, personally, do not believe that 2005 will be a 3G Christmas like some mobile ops have suggested. Why? Beyond cheap calls/texts 3G is just [generally] not ready for primetime save for some niche exceptions.

For example, five minutes with OTV/MobiTV and anyone I've shown it to has gone back to picking their nose/ear/bottom - it really is a dire implementation of TV on a mobile handset and hardly likely to draw in the masses beyond the initial £5 tryout month.

So far, noone I've demo'd 3G to gives a monkey's about the speedier music and music video downloads. None of them generally use Web services on the mobile handset, and fewer still see the need :eek: despite any protestations from myself. Some, grudgingly, think that email on the handset would be neat and are surprised that it is generally possible these days! And these are not all wrinklies that I'm talking about - a respectable number are in their early teens and beyond.

Now mention MSN and their ears prick up and the eyes sparkle - yet to date, noone is offering MSN or an MSN compatible IM on the mobile handset. I can do it from my PDA via Bluetooth via my Orange SPV C500 handset acting as a GPRS modem (forget it with 3 unless you want to hand over £45 a month for the privilige). But it is not on the 3G mobile itself (but MSN Messenger is on the SPV C500!!).

Perhaps 3G will really take off when a larger number of Windows Mobile handsets come out with MSN built in. Once the kids know its there, and so long as the data access charges are not stupidly expensive, as they are now, there will be a huge take up in that generation of people.

[3GScottishUser]

Good points. I agree that handsets that offer MSN Messenger might make a big difference. Watching teens locally using it on PC's it appears a natural in terms of a popular application that could be a big hit if the price fitted the target users budget. I'm pretty sure you don't need 3G to be able to provide that feature as I have used a version of MSN Messenger on my Motorola A835 on 02 - GSM.

I am looking forward to the next generation of 3G handsets especially those with the Windows software that will offer seamless transfer of data and will be more like the interface on the PC we know so well.

[Hands0n]

I'm pretty sure you don't need 3G to be able to provide that feature as I have used a version of MSN Messenger on my Motorola A835 on 02 - GSM.

You don't need 3G at all, you're right. I used my SPV C-500 on Orange 2G to demo MSN to my kids and they went wild about the idea that they could MSN from anywhere at all!! I had a job getting the SPV back from them - and cant wait to see my Orange GPRS charges after 30 mins of them on it!!!

[Ben]

Of course, technically you don't even need MSN Messenger - Agile Messenger connects to the MSN service just fine on a massive range of phones. It's not *the* most user-friendly/practical messaging ap in the world though. We need full integration into the Messaging subsections for it to take off.