As predicted by IDC, Australia's 3G market is being built through carrier network sharing. IDC also raised the highly likely scenario where Australia will have a 'bipolar' 3G market, with Telstra teaming up with Hutchison, and Optus aligning itself with Vodafone based on their common infrastructure suppliers which has since come to fruition.
"The Australian 3G market has turned around in the past 12 months, from uncertainty to synergy and stability. The firm commitments to launch 3G services in the second half of this year by Telstra, Optus and Vodafone have injected confidence to the once-precarious 3G industry blazed by Hutchison '3'," said Warren Chaisatien, IDC Australia's wireless and mobility research manager.
IDC's new study, titled 'And Then There Are Two: 3G Developments and Updates in Australia 2004', finds that competition will be fierce and differentiation will be critical as the three new WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access) services to be launched this year will all be targeting the consumer market, also the primary focus of Hutchison '3'.
Although the jury is still out on what the 3G 'killer apps' will be, the industry can expect the roles of 3G to fall into two major areas:
- Enriching the user-experience of existing usage, and
- Enabling new applications that are not possible on the current 2/2.5G networks.
As 3G is poised to become ubiquitous next year, this study also finds that: service revenue will double every year between now and 2008, when one in four mobile phone users are on 3G networks; network reliability, handset variety and affordability, and simple tariff plans are some of the elements critical to the initial stages of ubiquitous 3G rollouts; and while the 3G market is still embryonic, the industry has already set its sight on '3G evolved' or 3.5G.
A significant trend coinciding with 3.5G is IP multimedia subsystem (IMS), which is paving the way for new services, such as combination multimedia service and fixed-to-mobile convergence.
