T-Mobile Catching Up On 3G

Dec 19, 2005 | blog

Techdirt Wireless has a post about how T-Mobile USA is now committing to 3G, hoping to launch 3G services by the end of 2006. They also mention that it may be to T-Mobile’s benefit to be rolling out 3G later than their peers and that nobody has figured out how to market 3G yet.

I’ll agree with this completely – T-Mobile can roll out a much more mature technology instead of spending billions implementing through trial & error. The result will be 3G services for less than the competition, and that is the key to 3G that all the carriers just don’t get. There is no magic ticket for 3G except for a big fat wireless pipe for cheap, just like a home broadband connection.

The sooner carriers understand that they simply supply a connection and get away from the idea that they need to wall the customer in, or provide some ‘hip’ service like ringtones (LOL), the sooner they will be able to sign up the majority of their existing voice customers as data customers.

The business plan for 3G is simple if they will try it, and remains the same as many business models: Volume!