[Hands0n]

Following on from comments made by 3GSU elsewhere I found the following articles of interest in ZDNet today (quite coincidentally as it happens!).

First up is "DIY WiMax within two years" - oh, yes purleeze , bring it on.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,39020336,39195498,00.htm
Very interesting that BT want to be first out of the gate, or at least are behaving like they want to. It was quite different with ADSL of course, but then BT don't own the airwaves now, do they ? I wish them well.

Next up was this little beaut ....
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/windows/0,39020396,39195492,00.htm
Now, if any mobile op misses the opportunity to get in and be ready to accommodate this market they'll find themselves watching the backs of business walk away - and it is my experience that they won't be seeing them walk back in anything like the distant future!! This is a completely logical continuation of what the corps are doing already with VPN access on wired Internet connections (and wireless where they can get the path to their VPN gateway). Not exactly sure what value M$ are adding to the process which already works .... but clearly they do and see a huge market or they'd not bother. Blackberry ready this year? Well, that gives mobile ops like H3 less than a few months to be ready with full Internet access if they want to be in the running.

And finally ......
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/mobile/0,39020360,39195481,00.htm
"Gartner sees cheaper mobiles ahead, as manufacturers look to increase the size of the global mobile market" ........... ""What this means is multiple ownership," he said. "From a CIO's perspective, that's a nightmare for support," claimed Jones, warning that increased mobility has its downsides"
Oh come on! I want a phone for each day of the week, and one to go with my party frock :) Are you listening? Lifestyle is the way forward, especially in a "saturated market" such as the UK.

So what do y'all reckon?

[Ben]

First off, plug and play WiMax sounds very promising. Though I'm sceptical as to its uses with fixed ADSL now so widely available, up to 30 miles (!) coverage sounds like it wouldn't be too hard to cover large areas. That, in itself, will be a huge dilemma for the 3G networks! Also, there's no way BT is going to want punters switching from its ADSL service to the WiMax service purely for mobility reasons... it's going to be very interesting.

Mobile IM is fantastic. Connected to public services like MSN it just makes so much more sense for realtime comms than SMS does! I already use MSN for business purposes, but I doubt that public messaging services are really a friend to large businesses where ultimately it can be easily used as an all-day-chatline. Microsofts corporate IM products should validate IM for business and indeed force companies like H3G to offer real connectivity to meet the demands of their business users.

Driving down the cost of mobiles sounds good - I'm sure we'll benefit from lower component costs, especially in the more basic handsets. I don't think this will affect advanced phones very much, but it may well give life to some very reasonably priced, small and cheap GSM phones. The networks and manufacturers are yet to address multiple ownership yet really - I think a centralised contacts server and multiple SIM cards per account is the way to go in order to achieve true 'fashion' or 'lifestyle' mobility.