Mobile Broadband - the 'Killer Ap' for 3G in Asia-Pacific?
Broadband Report 3 Mobile broadband - the 'killer ap' for 3G in Asia-Pacific? The author, Janice Chong, is an industry manager at global growth consulting company Frost & Sullivan. She spearheads research in mobile and wireless communications, covering services, applications and devices in the Asia Pacific telecommunications ive years on from its initial launch in applications, there is little that differenti- F Japan and South Korea, 3G (third ates 3G from 2.5G services. The latter is generation) network deployment is on a already capable of delivering most mobile global scale. With the exception of China, services and applications over its existing India and Thailand, the 3G movement has network. The only compelling proposition permeated the Asia Pacific region, ranging that 3G offers is user experience due to from the highly saturated to the emerging its bigger bandwidth pipe, which allows for markets. Apart from the mature (tier-i) 3G shorter download time and better quality of markets i.e. Japan and South Korea, coun- service. As it stands, the lack of compelling tries that have launched 3G services now content and a business case for users to include Hong Kong, Australia, New Zea- embark on this migration path has inhib- land, Singapore and Malaysia (collectively ited the mass adoption of 3G. known as tier-2 3G markets). The strategic positioning for 3G services The 3G subscriber base in Asia Pacific so far has mainly centred on price plays grew 54.7 percent (year-on-year) in 2006 as an immediate means of enticing users reaching 90.6 million subscribers, which to migrate onto the 3G platform.
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