BenQ-Siemens M81

3G stands for the third generation of wireless communicationtechnology and the industry direction are to raise speeds from9.5K to 2M bit/sec. According to 3gnewsroom.com, devices willfall into four categories. The first category includes the basic3G phones will be used mainly for talking and will store alltheir information on the network. The second category willsupport video-streaming, and will provide the user with news andweb content. More sophisticated models will be informationcentres which let users download information from the Internetand store data on the device.

A recent initiative by four leading handsetmanufacturers–Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia and Siemens–plus themessaging companies CMG, Comverse and Logica was motivated bythe launch of 3G. The companies hope to create awareness andfoster development of multimedia messaging service (MMS) bymaking audio, video, photographs and other images to accessibleto handsets.

3G and the Growth of the Wireless Mobile Market

The wireless mobile market is set to explode and this willprovide fresh graduates with exciting job opportunities.According to Will Daugherty’s The Growth of Wireless Mobile inBusiness 2.0, there will be 3 waves of mobile data services. Thefirst wave is linked wireless access to existing information anddata applications. The current second wave takes advantage ofwireless-specific functionality. The third wave will bring richgraphics, video, real-time multiplayer games.

Don Tapscott has been quoted “Mobile commerce is the nextstage of e-commerce, where we have the integration of thephysical world with the digital world…What we ’re talking hereis the beginning of pervasive and ubiquitous computing wherebillions and billions of inert objects become Internetappliances - enabling the sharing of knowledge and the deliveryof a vast new array of services.”

Need more convincing and statistics?

According to the findings in Wireless Portals: the InformationGateway to the Wireless User, by the end of 2006 there will beclose to 1 billion wireless portal users worldwide. The bulk ofthese users will be wireless voice users, WAP users, 2.5G and 3Gsubscribers, and other wireless device users such as those usingPDAs. Multi-modal users worldwide will stand close to 282million in 2006.

The Reaction of 3G in America

The importance of 3G technology can also be gauged by the stanceof the National Telecommunications and InformationAdministration (NTIA), an agency of the U.S. Department ofCommerce, which is the Executive Branch's principal voice ondomestic and international telecommunications and informationtechnology issues. NTIA recently published a report entitled"WIRELESS" INTERNET: What the 3G Challenge Means for U.S.Competitiveness where it insisted that 3G is important for thefuture of America's global competitiveness amongst other thingsand that the Europeans and Asians view 3G development as theirgolden opportunity to beat the United States' in the area oftelecommunications and ecommerce. The report also went furtherto state that the US will remain two years behind many Asian andEuropean countries on 3G services.

In contrast in another report entitled "Can U.S. Wireless FirmsRide Business Applications to Global Leadership?," SummitStrategies Practice Director Warren Wilson argues U.S. vendorsand service providers stand to win the strategic high ground,first in their home markets and then internationally. "Japan andEurope are leading the way in consumer-focused wirelessapplications, but business applications will drive U.S.markets,'' Wilson says. "North American vendors and serviceproviders that correctly gauge which business applications tooffer, and the development and deployment models that servecustomers best cannot only catch up to global competitors, buteven turn the tables and claim leadership roles in wirelessdata. It won't be easy, but it's far from impossible."

The importance of 3G and Wireless collaboration with the US hasnot been lost with NTT DoCoMo which understands that in order tomove towards 3G, it must persuade other carriers to follow suit.DoCoMo’s USD$10bn investment in AT&T Wireless came with theagreement that AT&T transferred towards W-CDMA.

I will highlight some promises provided by 3G Technology:

1)3G and Workplace Dynamics

3G Technology is an enabler of the development of the WearableComputing Industry. The WearTel (TM) phone, for example, usesEyeTap technology to allow individuals to see each other's pointof view. Therefore, the miniature laser light source inside theWearTel eyeglass-based phone scans across the retinas of bothparties and swaps the image information, so that each personsees what the other person is looking at.

This technology will enable the HR manager to have a betterunderstanding of how to motivate and reward their employees aspersonal documentaries of their work-life will be shot from afirst-person perspective. HR managers can provide better adviceabout handling difficult customers or closing sales. However,the immediate benefit is that this technology can be used as atraining tool. The reason is that privacy laws have to bereviewed and updated in order that customers are adequatelyinformed of this technology

2)3G and Mobile Job Interviewing

With an attached camera in a mobile device, job interviews canbe conducted as video-conferencing between the HR manager andthe potential job applicant. Initially, the job candidate cananswer basic questions like his highest qualification and salaryexpectation by pressing the key-pad
of the mobile device. Ifsuccessful, he can proceed to have a face-to-face interview.

3)3G and Mobile Advertising

3G technology will enable advertisers to send more sophisticatedand customized permission-based advertisements to their targetaudience’s mobile devices. This will be an improvement from thecurrent SMS. There will be a convergence between the internetand wireless technology as the target audience can request thatmore product information be sent as email. It is unlikely thatthese services will provide a sustainable advantage over thelong run but they will shape the brand perception of an operatorat the initial stage of the introduction of wireless Internetservices.

However, with the rise of m-commerce, ‘business-webs ’willbecome even more powerful as every customer will become linkedinto the web. According to Keith Shank of Ericsson, wirelineoperators will have to find a way to integrate with wireless byproviding a package of combined service capabilities andtransparent coverage. Demanding consumers will want convergenceof wireline, wireless and data services.

4)From E-Learning to M-Learning

The future holds a lot of promise for the E-Learning Industry.Martyn Sloman, author of The e-learning revolution has beenquoted as saying "The pace of change in the global economy andadvances in communications technology means that there is nodebate about whether e-learning is the future or not. It clearlyis. Latest assessments indicate that competitive organisationswill soon be delivering up to a fifth of their training throughthe Internet, intranets or the web."

With the greater acceptance of e-learning, mobile learning(m-learning) will be thrive. An example of how 3G can powerm-learning is when a student who may be late for a lecture canview the entire proceedings through the screen of a mobiledevice. It is also not far-fetched idea that the same studentcan even sit for a test by entering a password through themobile device.

Challenges Ahead

Privacy is a huge question as in the case of m-commerce, each ofus will leave a trail of “digital crumbs”. With the increasinglikelihood of a convergence between the net and wirelesstechnology in many facets of social and business interactions,each of us will leave a mirror image of ourselves as we travelaround.

Another problem that is highlighted by Eric Schonfeld ofeCompany is getting developers interested in creating theapplications that 3G phones can run. Currently developers tendto ignore markets with fewer than 1 million customers andconcurrently, demanding customers insist that 3G phones shouldhave lots of new applications to hold their attention.

Lastly, as sourced from the University of California’s BerkeleySchool of Information Management and System (SIMS) report “HowMuch Information?” Professors Hal Varian and Peter Lymananalysed industry and governmental reports for production ofinformation in terms of paper, film, optical and magnetic data.Among some of their findings:

§The direct accessible “surface” Web consists of about 2.5bndocuments and is growing at a rate of 7.3m pages per day.

§Counting the “surface” Web with the “deep” Web of connecteddatabases, intranet sites and dynamic pages, there are about550bn documents, and 95% is publicly accessible.

These findings show that we are already taking in a lot ofinformation even before the introduction of wirelesscommunication through 3G. Will there be further informationoverload or will mobile devices help us manage our daily affairsbetter?

The concluding 2 sections will provide some pointers:

1)Towards An Information Society

In the Foresight Project, an initiative led by New Zealand’sMinistry of Research, Science and Technology has stated that inan information society, individuals who are well-educated,self-motivated, and linked into information networks, are themost likely to live prosperous and fulfilling lives. Enterprisesthat are attuned to their customers’ requirements, employeducated workers, encourage innovation through their workplaceorganization and, and know more and learn faster than theircompetitors, are the most likely to succeed and grow.

Reinforcing this point, according to Peter Drucker, there is thediscipline of innovation. This is translated into having a clearmission and defining the measurement of results. In the eventthat there are no results, the organization should abandon theidea and then continue to seek for new and unique opportunities.

2)Future Challenges of a Knowledge-Economy

According to Dr Johari Mat, Secretary General Ministry ofEducation (Malaysia) at the First SEAMEO Education Congress, aKnowledge Economy Index developed using selected key elementsrequired to drive a K-economy such as computer infrastructure,infrastructure, education and training, research and developmentand technology shows that most countries in this region lagbehind developed and newly industrialized countries in terms ofreadiness to become a K-economy. For instance, the KnowledgeEconomy Index is 3877 for Singapore, 2460 for Malaysia, 1705 forIndonesia, and 1648 for Thailand while the Index is 6650 forUSA, 5908 for Japan, 4901 for Australia, 4686 for UK, and 3912for Korea, thus, to make a transition to the K-economy,countries in this region face the daunting task of putting inplace and strengthening the core elements required to supportthe K-economy. Efforts need to be accelerated in the priorityareas of human resource development, science and technology,research and development (R&D), ICT, and lifelong learning.

To conclude, 3G is definitely here to stay despite the earlyglitches. The opportunity of being truly wireless and mobile isjust too enticing.