Debitel and Vodafone enter the future of mobile services

The current state of 3rd generation services in Germany

(PRWEB) April 10, 2004 --The mobile service provider Debitel was the first enterprise to offer UMTS services in Germany at the beginning of this year. Vodafone was soon to follow with their 3rd Generation mobile services.

Nevertheless, owing to an extensive marketing campaign Vodafone did get much more attention. The ?Vodafone Mobile Connect Card UMTS? allows users to surf the web with their Laptops at a transmission speed of 384k/second ? mobile via UMTS. As of now, this network is only accessible in major metropolitan areas.

The remaining mobile service providers waited until March to announce the start of their 3rd generation services. Telekom is expected to start in May, E-Plus soon after that in June.

So far the providers are still on the search for killer applications that would trigger users to switch to UMTS. As of now, the services running on UMTS can also be accessed via GPRS or other older technologies just at a slower pace. The pure gain of a little speed might not be enough to give UMTS the necessary boost and trigger consumers to open their wallets.

So far, the third mobile services generation has reached the following markets: Australia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Slovenia, Spain and the United Arab Emirates (source: UMTS Forum). However, the network coverage and the selection of the offered services differ immensely.

Japan is considered the trendsetter for mobile services. UMTS is already established in this market. At the beginning the users were also very reserved - one year ago the leading provider NTT Docomo had registered only 140,000 UMTS customers - but in the meantime this number could be increased to over 2 millions. The newcomer KDDI could win even 12 million customers in the same period.

In the meantime, much further reaching services have been offered in Japan and the mobile devices are strongly present in daily lives. Mobile devices are replacing watches or serve as an e-mail transmitter. Mobile phones are beginning to replace cash in grocery stores, movie theaters or in suburban traffic systems. The phones also allow for keyless entry or can serve as remote control for the home entertainment systems. Due to these possibilities, 20% of the Japanese mobile customers have already switched to 3rd generation mobile services.

The start for UMTS in Italy was a bit rougher. Italians are using their mobile phones extensively and spent almost 700 Mio Euros for Ring tones, Games, Logos and SMS in 2003. But 3rd generation mobile services have not yet been accepted in this market.

This led to toned-down expectations in Germany. The companies don?t emphasize the service itself but rather the options and benefits attached to it. Instead of a big bang, UMTS will rather grow at a moderate but steady pace in Germany.

conceptbakery, located in Cologne and Los Angeles is a professional marketing agency specializing on pioneer work in the area of guerilla marketing. The company combines the latest marketing trends and technologies in Germany and the United States. Info is available at www.conceptbakery.com or e-mail: info@conceptbakery.com.