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3G TECHNOLOGY
Introduction
Imagine a situation where you are
about to make an important Sales
Presentation. You realize that you have
brought the wrong presentation slides
and you call up your colleague. She
immediately emails the file to your 3G
terminal and you transfer it to your
laptop. Another scenario is having
video-conferencing and sending
character-based messages simultaneously
with your clients. With 3G, the
possibilities for wireless applications
are numerous. For instance, imagine
calling up a map in your car, conducting
a video conference over wireless phones,
checking e-mails, and browsing the web -
wirelessly.
3G Defined
3G stands for the third generation of
wireless communication technology and
the industry direction are to raise
speeds from 9.5K to 2M bit/sec.
According to 3gnewsroom.com, devices
will fall into four categories. The
first category includes the basic 3G
phones will be used mainly for talking
and will store all their information on
the network. The second category will
support video-streaming, and will
provide the user with news and web
content. More sophisticated models will
be information centres which let users
download information from the Internet
and store data on the device.
A recent initiative by four leading
handset manufacturers-Ericsson,
Motorola, Nokia and Siemens-plus the
messaging companies CMG, Comverse and
Logica was motivated by the launch of
3G. The companies hope to create
awareness and foster development of
multimedia messaging service (MMS) by
making audio, video, photographs and
other images to accessible to handsets.
3G and the Growth of the
Wireless Mobile Market
The wireless mobile market is set to
explode and this will provide fresh
graduates with exciting job
opportunities. According to Will
Daugherty's The Growth of Wireless
Mobile in Business 2.0, there will be 3
waves of mobile data services. The first
wave is linked wireless access to
existing information and data
applications. The current second wave
takes advantage of wireless-specific
functionality. The third wave will bring
rich graphics, video, real-time
multiplayer games.
Don Tapscott has been quoted "Mobile
commerce is the next stage of
e-commerce, where we have the
integration of the physical world with
the digital world…What we 're talking
here is the beginning of pervasive and
ubiquitous computing where billions and
billions of inert objects become
Internet appliances - enabling the
sharing of knowledge and the delivery of
a vast new array of services."
Need more convincing and
statistics?
According to the findings in Wireless
Portals: the Information Gateway to the
Wireless User, by the end of 2006 there
will be close to 1 billion wireless
portal users worldwide. The bulk of
these users will be wireless voice
users, WAP users, 2.5G and 3G
subscribers, and other wireless device
users such as those using PDAs.
Multi-modal users worldwide will stand
close to 282 million in 2006.
The Reaction of 3G in America
The importance of 3G technology can
also be gauged by the stance of the
National Telecommunications and
Information Administration (NTIA), an
agency of the U.S. Department of
Commerce, which is the Executive
Branch's principal voice on domestic and
international telecommunications and
information technology issues. NTIA
recently published a report entitled
"WIRELESS" INTERNET: What the 3G
Challenge Means for U.S. Competitiveness
where it insisted that 3G is important
for the future of America's global
competitiveness amongst other things and
that the Europeans and Asians view 3G
development as their golden opportunity
to beat the United States' in the area
of telecommunications and ecommerce. The
report also went further to state that
the US will remain two years behind many
Asian and European countries on 3G
services.
In contrast in another report
entitled "Can U.S. Wireless Firms Ride
Business Applications to Global
Leadership?," Summit Strategies Practice
Director Warren Wilson argues U.S.
vendors and service providers stand to
win the strategic high ground, first in
their home markets and then
internationally. "Japan and Europe are
leading the way in consumer-focused
wireless applications, but business
applications will drive U.S. markets,''
Wilson says. "North American vendors and
service providers that correctly gauge
which business applications to offer,
and the development and deployment
models that serve customers best cannot
only catch up to global competitors, but
even turn the tables and claim
leadership roles in wireless data. It
won't be easy, but it's far from
impossible."
The importance of 3G and Wireless
collaboration with the US has not been
lost with NTT DoCoMo which understands
that in order to move towards 3G, it
must persuade other carriers to follow
suit. DoCoMo's USD$10bn investment in
AT&T Wireless came with the agreement
that AT&T transferred towards W-CDMA.
I will highlight some promises
provided by 3G Technology:
1)3G and Workplace Dynamics
3G Technology is an enabler of the
development of the Wearable Computing
Industry. The WearTel (TM) phone, for
example, uses EyeTap technology to allow
individuals to see each other's point of
view. Therefore, the miniature laser
light source inside the WearTel
eyeglass-based phone scans across the
retinas of both parties and swaps the
image information, so that each person
sees what the other person is looking
at.
This technology will enable the HR
manager to have a better understanding
of how to motivate and reward their
employees as personal documentaries of
their work-life will be shot from a
first-person perspective. HR managers
can provide better advice about handling
difficult customers or closing sales.
However, the immediate benefit is that
this technology can be used as a
training tool. The reason is that
privacy laws have to be reviewed and
updated in order that customers are
adequately informed of this technology
2)3G and Mobile Job
Interviewing
With an attached camera in a mobile
device, job interviews can be conducted
as video-conferencing between the HR
manager and the potential job applicant.
Initially, the job candidate can answer
basic questions like his highest
qualification and salary expectation by
pressing the key-pad of the mobile
device. If successful, he can proceed to
have a face-to-face interview.
3)3G and Mobile Advertising
3G technology will enable advertisers
to send more sophisticated and
customized permission-based
advertisements to their target
audience's mobile devices. This will be
an improvement from the current SMS.
There will be a convergence between the
internet and wireless technology as the
target audience can request that more
product information be sent as email. It
is unlikely that these services will
provide a sustainable advantage over the
long run but they will shape the brand
perception of an operator at the initial
stage of the introduction of wireless
Internet services.
However, with the rise of m-commerce,
'business-webs 'will become even more
powerful as every customer will become
linked into the web. According to Keith
Shank of Ericsson, wireline operators
will have to find a way to integrate
with wireless by providing a package of
combined service capabilities and
transparent coverage. Demanding
consumers will want convergence of
wireline, wireless and data services.
4)From E-Learning to
M-Learning
The future holds a lot of promise for
the E-Learning Industry. Martyn Sloman,
author of The e-learning revolution has
been quoted as saying "The pace of
change in the global economy and
advances in communications technology
means that there is no debate about
whether e-learning is the future or not.
It clearly is. Latest assessments
indicate that competitive organisations
will soon be delivering up to a fifth of
their training through the Internet,
intranets or the web."
With the greater acceptance of
e-learning, mobile learning (m-learning)
will be thrive. An example of how 3G can
power m-learning is when a student who
may be late for a lecture can view the
entire proceedings through the screen of
a mobile device. It is also not
far-fetched idea that the same student
can even sit for a test by entering a
password through the mobile device.
Challenges Ahead
Privacy is a huge question as in the
case of m-commerce, each of us will
leave a trail of "digital crumbs". With
the increasing likelihood of a
convergence between the net and wireless
technology in many facets of social and
business interactions, each of us will
leave a mirror image of ourselves as we
travel around.
Another problem that is highlighted
by Eric Schonfeld of eCompany is getting
developers interested in creating the
applications that 3G phones can run.
Currently developers tend to ignore
markets with fewer than 1 million
customers and concurrently, demanding
customers insist that 3G phones should
have lots of new applications to hold
their attention.
Lastly, as sourced from the
University of California's Berkeley
School of Information Management and
System (SIMS) report "How Much
Information?" Professors Hal Varian and
Peter Lyman analysed industry and
governmental reports for production of
information in terms of paper, film,
optical and magnetic data. Among some of
their findings:
§The direct accessible "surface" Web
consists of about 2.5bn documents and is
growing at a rate of 7.3m pages per day.
§Counting the "surface" Web with the
"deep" Web of connected databases,
intranet sites and dynamic pages, there
are about 550bn documents, and 95% is
publicly accessible.
These findings show that we are
already taking in a lot of information
even before the introduction of wireless
communication through 3G. Will there be
further information overload or will
mobile devices help us manage our daily
affairs better?
The concluding 2 sections will
provide some pointers:
1)Towards An Information
Society
In the Foresight Project, an
initiative led by New Zealand's Ministry
of Research, Science and Technology has
stated that in an information society,
individuals who are well-educated,
self-motivated, and linked into
information networks, are the most
likely to live prosperous and fulfilling
lives. Enterprises that are attuned to
their customers' requirements, employ
educated workers, encourage innovation
through their workplace organization
and, and know more and learn faster than
their competitors, are the most likely
to succeed and grow.
Reinforcing this point, according to
Peter Drucker, there is the discipline
of innovation. This is translated into
having a clear mission and defining the
measurement of results. In the event
that there are no results, the
organization should abandon the idea and
then continue to seek for new and unique
opportunities.
2)Future Challenges of a
Knowledge-Economy
According to Dr Johari Mat, Secretary
General Ministry of Education (Malaysia)
at the First SEAMEO Education Congress,
a Knowledge Economy Index developed
using selected key elements required to
drive a K-economy such as computer
infrastructure, infrastructure,
education and training, research and
development and technology shows that
most countries in this region lag behind
developed and newly industrialized
countries in terms of readiness to
become a K-economy. For instance, the
Knowledge Economy Index is 3877 for
Singapore, 2460 for Malaysia, 1705 for
Indonesia, and 1648 for Thailand while
the Index is 6650 for USA, 5908 for
Japan, 4901 for Australia, 4686 for UK,
and 3912 for Korea, thus, to make a
transition to the K-economy, countries
in this region face the daunting task of
putting in place and strengthening the
core elements required to support the
K-economy. Efforts need to be
accelerated in the priority areas of
human resource development, science and
technology, research and development
(R&D), ICT, and lifelong learning.
To conclude, 3G is definitely here to
stay despite the early glitches. The
opportunity of being truly wireless and
mobile is just too enticing.
About the Author
Colin Ong TS is the Managing Director
of MR=MC Consulting Pte Ltd (www.mrmc.com.sg).
He is a prolific writer on HR ,
Corporate Learning and New Technology
issues. His writings have appeared in a
number of global portals (http://www.mrmc.com.sg/research.html)
He has recently launched a free learning
portal at http://courses.yahoo.com/course/mrmc
which was featured in the recent
Singapore Learning Festival. For free
articles and advice, please email
colin@mrmc.com.sg
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