IDC analyst Peter Lemon said mobile data services would be the key to luring customers after September 25 - when number portability kicks in - because carriers would be unable to stay in business charging any less for voice transmission.
He said Australia's biggest carriers were ready to transmit data via GPRS - the most effective available technology for mobile data transmission - but that their customers did not own handsets equipped to accommodate the technology.
Carriers, and their customers, would need to wait until at least mid-2002 until manufacturers were likely to produce handsets able to transmit data via GPRS, he said.
Current wireless offerings, particularly GSM WAP, were too slow and too expensive to affect a customer's choice of carrier, he said.
-It's (GSM WAP) a very frustrating experience. And it's expensive," he said.
Mobile users would only choose carriers according to data offerings once speedy GPRS-compliant handsets became available, he said.
-The problem is that there haven't been any handsets. And the ones they've got aren't any good," Lemon said.
He said customers would be drawn to GPRS because that technology would allow them to access voice and Internet services on parallel dial-up lines. And he said GPRS would probably incur a -packet" billing system - meaning customers would be charged according to which data they downloaded, not the amount of time spent logged on.
That alternative pricing system would see faster mobile data transmission at around half the cost, he said.
