COMMENTARY--As we're constantly barraged by ads for various 'next-generation' phone services, it's worthwhile stopping to wonder if we're being sold something we've already got.Hutchison's spent a fortune on its 3G network, and by most estimates is haemorrhaging money at a rate that would make the average dot-com celebrity-Kleenex-selling venture blush. All of this is apparently according to plan; it's one of those high-finance dowhatsits where you spend an obscene amount of money in order to 'own' the market that you yourself created.
Telecommunications companies are rather good at this sort of thing, of course; I've lost track of the number of Telstra Mobile Loop ads I've seen on the side of buses, and I'd imagine that a rather large entry on Mary Coustas' next tax return (aside from whatever payoff she got from Channel 7 to make Greeks On The Roof die a quick death) will be in the form of AAPT paycheques.
The thing that strikes me about all of these services is that they seem to be actually selling on the back of existing technology, and not really on the promise of the new technologies they bring to bear. Sure, if you wander past one of Hutchison's many '3' branded storefronts they'll assault you with swirling video footage and the promise of being able to make video phone calls to your relatives in Italy.
That in itself opens up a whole can of worms, especially if you don't in fact have Italian relatives -- I wonder how long it'll be before an inebriated Australian 3 customer decides it'd be amusing to make a drunken mooning call to Mr Herbert Albreze of Naples? And how well will the average ocker take the reverse call at 3 in the morning when Mr Albreze's had one to many bottles of vino?
(Editor's side-note: I use the Italians as the source here simply for illustrative purposes and because that country was on the last '3' poster that invaded my consciousness. If it will make you feel better, replace 'Italy' with 'Austria' and 'Herbert Albreze' with 'Hans Lederhosen' if you like, or, for the best possible spin, 'Genericbania' and 'Mr Or Mrs Citizen'. Some explanations take all the fun out of everything.)
Video phone calls are all well and good, but it's a classic chicken-and-egg situation; if your Italian relatives don't have a suitable phone on the other end, then you're transmitting your messages out to space, where only aliens in a far galaxy will get them. Adding insult to injury, they won't receive those radio signals for another 10,000 years or so. Somehow I doubt that they'll care that you're showing off the new sofa or that Katie managed to get an A on her violin recital, although I'd happily invite any aliens who might be reading this to come and prove me wrong.
So for the moment, these next-generation phone vendors are falling back on the same old tricks of the trade that have worked so well before; cheap calls with little or no flag fall and heavily subsidised phones. Take the NEC e808N, which we recently reviewed. It's the second video-capable phone to be offered on the Hutchison's 3 network, and is a video-capable mobile with an integrated keyboard. If the future is all about video, why do we need integrated keyboards? Our resident mobile phone guru, James Pearce, has made his feelings about the 3 network rather well known, and in an unusual move for a poverty-stricken technology journalist, he's also put his money where his mouth is, investing last month in the model's predecessor, the e606. And his reasoning for this particular phone? "It was the cheapest phone I could get at the time", says he. It's hardly a ringing endorsement for the next big thing in mobile phone technologies, is it?
What do you think? Have you plunked down the cold hard cash for a 3G phone, and was it worth it? Let us know your thoughts at edit@zdnet.com.au.
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