[3g-g]

It's being predicted that GSM is starting to come to the end of it's life. W/CDMA networks are more efficent, have more capacity and can handle the type of data-centric products users want today much better than GSM/GPRS ever could.

Now I would say that all the users on this forum are of the 3G variety. But can you see a time when there's no 2G to fall back on? Not every country in the world has the chance to run a CDMA network, what would you do if you went abroad with your CDMA handset and only GSM was available? Could you cope with the change to your ability to roam? Do you want your calls and data to be cheap? If your operator came to you and said; "OK, everything you use is now 3/4 the price it used to be, but you'll only have use of the WCDMA (3G) network". One of the downfalls of this being if you went out of 3G coverage you'd have no service, would you do it? What if calls to other 3G phones were half the price of calling a GSM handset no matter what the network? Would you try and move everyone onto a 3G contract or would you stop calling people with those old GSM handsets?

Let me know your views and feel free to add any other points you can think of.

[Ben]

Interesting one!

Voice isn't really of interest to me, so they can do what they want with the voice rates. Obviously lower is better, and would be an incentive, but I'd imagine a WCMDA-only tariff's reduced data rates would be my clincher.

Halving (or better) the current data rates would make me snap up a WCDMA-only service. Yes, there are going to be coverage issues, but the price advantage would make it worthwhile me using a GSM handset (ie my Vodafone) when I'm out of 3G. The battery life and handset size advantages of a WCDMA-only handset would also tempt me.

I also text quite a lot. The price for text messaging probably isn't going to go down as it really isn't linked to the true send/receive costs at all anyway - it's 1000% profit. Instead I'd probably make use of the good data rates by going entirely IM and encouraging all my friends to do the same.

Roaming is an interesting one too. The limited roaming ability would probably result in a lot of people maintaining a GSM handset, like I do/will/would. Given time, of course, the main holiday destinations will all have WCDMA (the operators will want to exploit the extra revenue potential from holiday makers in tourist-rich locations) and the rest of the world will have to follow at some stage. 'World' phones will always exist, I'd imagine - perhaps home networks will actively bar a SIM from the GSM service so even a compatible phone will not work on GSM at home but will abroad?

I certainly eagerly await a WCDMA-only handset and tariffs.