Page 16 - Sphere No.10 (Dec 2003)

tial than earlier technologies to enhance
the mobile experience.
“Just as the technology that allows me to
fly (a pair of wings) is different to technol-
ogy that allows me to run (a pair of tennis
shoes), UMTS has the capacity to accom-
modate customers in a network incompa-
rably superior to those existing, at a cost
decisively more contained.”
VESTED I NTERESTS
Today’s dominant telecom incumbents
have an interest in dictating the timing for
innovation and determining when and if
the market is ready for something new,
Novari told the delegates.
In his opinion, the market is ready right
now but some operators are lagging behind.
“People want mobile communication with
the capacity to include more interesting,
more useful and more effective services.”
And they want it today, not in the future.
Because they have the technological
means, pure 3G operators have a distinct
competitive edge:
• They can respond to the desires of the mar-
ket with the freedom that other operators
who based their fortune on 2G don’t have.
• They can keep the promise that the limits
of the previous technology wouldn’t allow,
enabling companies to go mobile with
comparable performances of fixed line.
• They can design new services, putting to
use the characteristics of a technology cre-
ated for the transmission of data, with
a greater magnitude than those before.
The current challenge is to find ways to
increase the proportion of revenue coming
from value-added mobile services, Novari
said. Operators now need to conquer space
– “not in the cosmic sense, but that space
which makes up the few square centime-
tres in the videophone. A space on which
our eyes rest naturally a growing number of
times each day.”
THE NEXT GAME
For operators, the ability to transform the
activity of looking at a handset screen into
a billing opportunity is “the next game”,
which makes a “billing application” more
important than a “killer application”.
Apart from the obvious advantages
brought about by the superior technology,
it is essential to also ensure ease of use for
the customer, Novari believes.
“The quality of the user interface and
the accessibility to services are an obsession
with us. One must be able to do new
things with the same ease as those that you
do already. The critical factor for compet-
ing is not only content but how you make
the content available.”
With the 3 service, making a videomes-
sage is already easier then typing an SMS,
Novari noted. Being able to activate the
video camera with only one key, the “take
and send approach,” is a crucial factor for
accelerating penetration of the service.
The entry of 3 (Tre) into the Italian mar-
ket has been a remarkable success, he said.
“After only 150 days, 25% of the messages
sent on our network were videomessages.”
Of the more than 300,000 customers
who signed up in the first six months, 75%
make at least one video call per week and
in September alone customers downloaded
200,000 video goals.
Were it not for a handset shortage the fig-
ures would have been even higher, accord-
ing to Novari. He noted ruefully that the
flagship 3Store retail outlets had been out of
stock for a while due to high demand but
were still full of people wanting to know
when the new handsets would arrive.
“A greater availability of handsets would
allow us to exceed our objective of one
million customers for Italy within the first
year of operations,” he said.
S PHERE
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N E T W O R K I N G
4
Pure 3G
operators have
a distinct
competitive edge
ITU TelecomWorld 2003 created a melting pot in which industry leaders, academics, students and government representatives debated the future of the industry.