With President Bush banking on churches, synagogues and mosques to do what government policies and free-market forces cannot, it is only fitting that a faith-based approach be adopted by the wireless industry in the face of a variety of woes that will only worsen if the Next Big Thing-known as 3G-flops.
It is only fitting that the wireless industry look to faith, because, right now, that’s all there is. The numbers don’t add up. At least that’s what Wall Street, high-tech’s fair-weather friend, is saying. Banks are saying it too. Folks are getting downright stingy with their money.
3G has become a make-or-break proposition for the wireless industry. Wireless firms are spending billions of dollars on licenses, network buildout, m-commerce software and the rest on a 3G future that may or may not come to pass. As 3G goes, so goes the mobile-phone industry. It’s risky business.
Can mobile-phone firms recoup the massive capital expenditures? To do so, according to conventional wisdom, carriers will have to supplement voice business with new revenue generated by wireless data, m-commerce and Internet applications. That’s asking a lot.
Only a year ago, caffeinated consultants gushed with predictions of wireless data becoming so popular that voice would be given away. Imagine that! This Pollyanna outlook was in line with far-flung Nasdaq stock prices and sophisticated Wall Street reports. Frenetic financial houses and manic day traders went wild. Prices bid for 3G spectrum licenses shot up to the heavens and then fell back to earth.
All the baseless speculation fed on itself, day after day after day. Remember those halcyon days. It wasn’t so long ago.
Government policymakers have their backs to the wall as well. The Bush administration is working with the mobile-phone industry to find additional spectrum for 3G. It’s not easy. Fixed wireless carriers, the Pentagon and broadcasters are reluctant to move off of frequency bands that could be used for 3G.
Making the 3G plan all the more difficult are the complexities of spectrum sharing, relocation and the balancing of commercial and national security interests.
But are things really that bad? I’m growing increasingly leery of dire predictions that have Asia and Europe outclassing the United States on 3G. No doubt, industrial policy greatly benefits both regions, but America has a long and distinguished history of winning ugly.
Putting 3G networks together in the U.S. will not be neat or fancy. It will be ugly. But it will happen because of two enduring American values: dogged perseverance and Yankee ingenuity. It will mean keeping the faith.
