MANCHESTER, United Kingdom-Among the key issues worrying investors and wireless protagonists surrounding European third-generation (3G) in Germany and France includes the question of how many operators the markets can support.
Skeptics are coming out of the wireless woodwork to question whether greenfield operators can survive in such fiercely competitive and saturated markets. And if that’s not enough to deter the wayward wireless wanna-bes, who’s buying anyway?
Not only have rollout timeframes slipped, carrier confidence has taken a beating and investment amounts have been poured down a bottomless pit. More are asking the unthinkable: Can 3G players make money on General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) in the run up to 3G’s arrival, especially if that timeframe is longer than anyone originally imagined?
“Misjudgment and unrealistic forecasts” is how European Commissioner Mario Monti described 3G protagonists and their counsel. The total amount spent to date by mobile operators in Germany, Britain, France and Italy in the mad mobile auction bonanza in 2000, US$120 billion, is a king’s ransom in anyone’s currency. Network operators have made major gambles, but many are now freezing or delaying 3G deployment.
As would-be service white knights, multimedia message service (MMS) and GPRS are expected to shoulder the revenue burden to fill the void, but burnt fingers and slow-burn rollouts could spell chaos and collapse for more 3G wireless players. That’s the message increasingly coming out of the Continent in the wake of recent high-profile resignations, business closures and 3G cancellations in a moribund mobile market in the midst of meltdown and malaise. Attempting to presage a recovery is akin to predicting when an asteroid may hit planet Earth.
The German question
Following the recent shuttering of Germany’s Neuer Markt tech stock market and the exit of Sonera-Telef
