Phone Makers Ensure That 3g Stays At The Cutting Edge
The Age
Tuesday February 28, 2006
ED ZANDER, the man who put new juice into the venerable arteries of Motorola and turned it into the second-largest mobile-phone maker in the world, calls it "seamless connectivity".
Nokia, the market leader, whom Mr Zander aims to overtake, has as its mantra, "connecting people".Either way, both now see their products reaching the goal at which they, and their rivals, have always aimed - making a mobile-phone handset into the essential terminal connecting its user through the net from wherever they are to wherever they wish their minds, activities and businesses to be.Such was the theme at the 3GSM Association World Congress in Barcelona this month. The figure 3 is now the badge of "broadband" mobile connectivity. There were 50,000 delegates and 1000 exhibitors crammed into nine halls. Mr Zander's keynote speech was on the theme, touting cool handset design and the directions in which Motorola intends to take its RAZR V3 flip phone, SLVR V7 "candy bar" and something called SCPL (meaning, probably, "scalpel, sharper than a razor), yet to be released.The new phones will use GSM and WCDMA networks, but they may also connect with in-home or in-office wifi networks so that one number and handset will provide connection wirelessly when the user is out, and to a fixed line, with ADSL when that is available.The iPod has shown that TV shows, news and film clips, edited for tiny screens, are marketable options. But as the Motorola mantra emphasises, the key lies in making phone calls, audio and video, email, net-based information, and stored material from a variety of networks, available at the touch of a button.Design is going beyond that. Sony Ericsson gave more than a nod to Apple's iPod. It displayed a range of small-scale, high-fidelity speakers into which the handset could be plugged. Another set was a pair of tiny cubes, producing good sound.Handsets are becoming more capable because their storage has been boosted. A common figure was 64 MB, some of it built onto the SIM card and some provided by miniature removable SD cards.But the phone makers were far from the only bulls on the Barcelona prairie. Steve Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft, extolled the virtues of his company's mobile Office application's ability to push email to smart phones.Perhaps the best example of how close mobile telephony is moving into the net, Skype was there, too, aiming its low-cost IP option as much at corporate users as the geek chatting to the world from his bedroom.
© 2006 The Age
