SINGAPORE: A senior executive in software giant Microsoft Corp's mobility
unit said on Monday he hoped the prediction that widespread wireless data
services are just "a year away" comes true - for once.
"I will be happy to say that I do believe that we are about a year away
from seeing the 'hockey stick,' and I'd love to come back next year and prove
that I was right," Juha Christensen, a mobile phone industry veteran and
vice president for sales and marketing at Microsoft's mobility group, told a
conference.
He was referring to an expected surge in wireless Internet activity. But
Christensen also said that such "year-away" predictions had been made,
and proven wrong, for years. What's not a joke is that the world's mobile
carriers desperately need the wireless Internet to become a cash-spinner, and
quickly.
Cellular carriers, which shelled out more than $100 million in Europe alone
for third-generation (3G) mobile phone spectrum, are groaning under debt that
averages $650 to $680 per subscriber, and would peak at $700 to $750 over the
next year, he said.
Yearly per subscriber revenue averages roughly $530, Christensen noted.
"We do believe that the profit per subscriber will grow in a wireless data
scenario," he said. With profitability from voice services stagnating, he
said, "imagine if wireless data was not happening. Then the networks would
have a substantial problem."
He said the development of mobile data would break into three
"waves." The first was wireless access to basic applications, such as
e-mail and messaging.
The second wave takes advantage of the ability to know the user's location,
personalizes content and takes advantage of the "always-on" capability
of so-called packet-switched (as opposed to circuit-switched) networks. The
third incorporates streaming audio and video. Christensen said the industry was
between the first and second waves at the moment.
(C) Reuters Limited 2001.