3G mobile phones on a roll at telecoms exhibition

By Tantri Yuliandini

SINGAPORE (JP): Third generation (3G) mobile telephones have once again become the main attraction at the annual telecommunications exhibition, CommunicAsia 2001.

The public's curiosity over the much hyped high-tech mobile service has reached a peak after Japan's telecoms giant NTT DoCoMo rolled out the world's first 3G mobile communications services late last month.

The company boasted of video streaming capabilities and high speed data transmissions of up to 384 kilobits per second, which are the major draws for 3G mobile systems.

NTT DoCoMo's 420-square-meter booth at the exhibition was continuously packed by inquisitive visitors trying their hands at DoCoMo's new 3G FOMA (Freedom Of Mobile Multimedia Access) handsets.

Other companies are not far behind.

Some 2,000 companies participated in the four-day exhibition which ended on Friday, most of which are vying for the highly lucrative Asia-Pacific telecoms market, each and every one presenting its latest gizmos and gadgets.

Companies participated for the first time at this year's event included Hewlett-Packard, Palm, Mitsubishi, ZTE Corporation, Korea Telecom, China Netcom, Shanghai Bell, and UT Starcom.

Technology, however, was not all they were competing in.

Rival companies also competed for attention by constructing the biggest, most elaborate booths; using the most beautiful women to draw customers; offering the most unique souvenirs; or hiring television stars or famous basketball players to get people to visit their booths.

Indonesian state-owned telecommunications company PT Indosat, for instance, hired MTV video-jockey Sarah Sechan to introduce its products to the public.

Walking between the companies' exhibition booths on 80,000 square meters of land at Singapore Expo was indeed like being in another world.

Adopting a much more sober tone for its booth, Swedish telecommunications company, Ericsson, was definitely in the heat of the action offering solutions for bringing the world's cellular operators into 3G.

Ericsson is especially eyeing emerging markets in the Asia- Pacific region with China leading the list, the company's president and CEO Kurt Hellstrom said.

"We expect the Asia-Pacific region to continue to be the fastest growing market in the coming years," he said in his keynote address at the CommunicAsia Summit which was held in conjunction with the exhibition.

Hellstrom predicted that the number of mobile users in the region would quickly increase from 250 million in 2000 to 550 million by 2004.

Ericsson is positioning itself as the technology provider for both the widely used global system for mobile communications (GSM) and the code division multiple access (CDMA) system preferred by the United States and Japan.

"We have the technology to bring both systems towards third generation mobile services," senior system marketing manager for Ericsson's mobile systems division Lasse Hellstrom boasted.

In Indonesia, for instance, the company is cooperating with Indosat in its Indosat Multi Media Mobile (IM3) project.

Indosat, currently an international direct dial service provider, will begin marketing its cellular services using the GSM system on 1,800 megahertz sometime in August.

Using Ericsson technology, the company will also be implementing the general packet radio service (GPRS), which is considered a necessary transition step towards 3G.

GPRS allows high speed data transmissions of up to 115 kilobits per second and could greatly improve the existing wireless application protocol (WAP) service, which has so far been a flop due to its high cost.

Ericsson's GPRS system has been implemented in 15 countries around the world, including by Hong Kong's SmarTone and Singapore's SingTel, Lasse Hellstrom said.

Demonstrating itself as an end-to-end solutions provider, the company will also launch its GPRS-enabled handsets between the third and fourth quarter of this year.

"Our GPRS-enabled R520 terminals have already been launched in some parts of the world, and soon we will also introduce the T39 and the T68 which has a color screen," he said.

The final step towards 3G for the GSM network after GPRS is EDGE or Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution which Ericsson also provides, Hellstrom said.

"From GPRS to EDGE, all it needs is a simple transition," he added.