SURABAYA, Indonesia-The three Singaporean mobile carriers confirmed they are on track to launch third-generation (3G) services before the deadline set by the country’s regulator Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) at the end of 2004.
Jesmine Ong, SingTel’s spokeswoman, said SingTel is meeting the deadline by continuously adopting a practical approach toward 3G development. Furthermore she said SingTel planned to introduce selected 3G services later this year after almost two years working closely with various 3G vendors and developers to identify useful applications the market would need.
Rival MobileOne (M1) is optimistic to have its 3G services ready for commercial launch within the announced timeframe. The driver for its upcoming 3G services is M1’s investment in research and development projects, such as the Application Developers Community, Future Lab and Wireless Intellect Labs.
The city-state’s third operator, StarHub, is carefully looking at a more revolutionary path in building out its 3G network, because the availability and price of 3G-enabled handsets and useful applications are not defined yet.
The huge investment and uncertainty of useful applications that consumers want to use and pay for will influence the exact date the three carriers launch 3G services. When commercially available, it seems business users will be the early adopters of the new services, such as video conferencing or data transactions that can leverage the 3G technology.
