3G OR NOT 3G
Monday, May 8th, 2006
It seems that the two leading cellular mobile What they don’t understand is that most So now you have Globe crowing that it’s the first to offer a commercial 3.5G service, Plus, here’s Globe Right now, it’s actually a close contest between Smart and Unfortunately, that seems to be our lot as consumers in this country.
telephone service providers are content with their game of
one-upmanship, on who can claim to be the first to launch a commercial
3G service, and then who can say they’re the first to introduce a
commercial 3.5G service.
consumers couldn’t care less how great 3G technology is if there’s
nothing to watch, cell site coverage is still spotty, and the pricing
scheme isn’t attractive.
but apart from securing bragging rights, issuing praise releases and
having supplements published in the newspapers, what has this move
really accomplished? As they themselves admit, HSDPA (High Speed
Downlink Packet Access) enabled handsets aren’t available in the
Philippines yet, so why should mobile phone subscribers care right now
when only laptop users will benefit from this?
saying that they want 3G to be as affordable as 3G, yet they’re
adopting the per-kilobyte pricing they used for GPRS (general packet
radio service) for 3G. Hello? Haven’t you noticed that GPRS didn’t
exactly set the market on fire in the Philippines, precisely because
it’s irritating not to have control on how much you’ll be paying per
use?
Globe on who ultimately is offering the worse deal for 3G. They both
suck, so is it again a case of having to choose between the lesser of
two evils.
By Joey Alarilla
INQ7.net
