Sony Ericsson's first 3G phone

[Andy Sjostrom]

<a href="http://www.mobil.se/nyheter/visa.asp?id=4840&sid=1">http://www.mobil.se/nyheter/visa.asp?id=4840&sid=1</a><br /><br />The Swedish mobile devices magazine, Mobil, just published pictures of what is said to be Sony Ericsson's first 3G phone. The phone was shown to mobile network operators at GSM World in Cannes and at the CeBIT fair. It was not shown to the general public. Sony Ericsson's Peter Bodor confirms: "Yes, this is a 3G-phone that we have developed with a 3G operator in Japan."<br />Here are some translated sentences from the article: <br />"The 3G phone has a digital camera that most likely can be rotated 360 degrees, the menus are in English but the hardware buttons show both Japanese and latin letters.<br />- When will it be released to the Japanese market?<br />- I don't know. We haven't set a release date for this product. [said Peter Bodor]"<br /><br />According to the article this phone is primarily intended for the Japanese market. The MG-logo (MemoryGate) on the phone indicates that the phone has a MemoryStick slot.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/sonyericsson3g.jpg" /><br /><br />See <a href="http://www.mobil.se/special/SonyEricsson3G.jpg">larger pictures here!</a><br /><br />My own thoughts. 3G (3rd generation) networks are a natural evolution from current mobile networks. GPRS is generally referred to as 2.5G and we are seeing more and more devices supporting that, including Pocket PC Phone Edition and Smartphone 2002.<br /><br />Moving to 3G is essentially just a matter of bandwidth, ie data moves faster to and from the connected devices. The fact of the matter continues to evolve around that it is software that matters. More bandwidth will make it possible to design and develop cooler applications and enable more mobile scenarios. (Note to reader: if you are a Microsoft employee, stop reading now!)<br /><br />If we extrapolate the innovation and improvements in the Windows Powered Pocket PC and Smartphone 2002 platforms to when 3G networks are generally available, I have no doubt that these platforms will be the premium choice to most mobile network operators and application developers. The race is not about making the first ?-device, but the best.

[Trade Wind]

Gosh...I hope the Microsoft SmartPhone team can reach a breakthrough with their CDMA bottlenecks.

Verizon Wireless is already about to launch a trial CDMA2000 1XEV-DO network. The same network that SK Telecom is now running.

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/ticker/article.asp?Symbol=US:VZ&Feed=PR&Date=20020319&ID=1499109

[Steve Bush]

Moving to 3G is essentially just a matter of bandwidth...
It is? I disagree. Some moves from 2G and 2.5G to 3G require significant infrastructure changes. Take the migration from GSM or GPRS to EDGE, for example. The carrier would have to replace all base stations.

There is also the issues of billing and roaming agreements. GSM has generally been billed by connection time. Significant charges would be required to move to billing by the amount of data transferred. True?

[JMountford]

Tradewind,
I think that the lack of CDMA handsets is more due to the lack of adopters among OEMs than to Microsoft.

Still I read on MSNBCs Technology News that Doc Mo To is testing an Evo Network. Now I know they are GSM but it just drives home the idea that the Handset OEMs are majorly slacking and screwing the would be consumer.

Andy,
I think that 3G is much more than bandwith. Most carriers allready have the bandwith alocated. It is more restructuring the Hardware and software of the Wireless Network. It will be easier for some carriers than others, but in the end it is about upgrading and the money it costs the carriers to upgrade. American Carriers are being very, very cautous due to the costs of upgrading. Not to mention for a lot of countries last year saw a major economic decline, yet some how these carriers are supposed to find the money and have the guts to upgrade their networks in the midsts of stagnant numbers in new suscriptions and current usage.

[Andy Sjostrom]

My comment regarding what 3G means is strictly from a user experience perspective. Packet based communication and billing, network hardware upgrades... Wouldn't you agree that, from a user/usage perspective, 3G is about bandwidth?

[Trade Wind]

Tradewind,
I think that the lack of CDMA handsets is more due to the lack of adopters among OEMs than to Microsoft.

Still I read on MSNBCs Technology News that Doc Mo To is testing an Evo Network. Now I know they are GSM but it just drives home the idea that the Handset OEMs are majorly slacking and screwing the would be consumer.

From what I understand, there are some technological barriers in place at this point with the Smartphone platform when used in CDMA environements. Seeing as how Verizon & Sprint PCS are on the forefront here in the US with providing true 2.5 G networks...while testing 3G networks...I hope that sufficient time & efforts are going into breaking through those barriers!

The world's first commercial EV-DO network is running thanks to SK Telecom. To put it in perspective..SK Telecom launched their 1x RTT network in late 2000. Verizon *just* launched their 1x RTT network earlier this year...so we are running about 2 and a half years behind SK Telecom.

[JMountford]

Tradewind, as always from you interresting stuff. I am not familiar with any technological problems, but then I am not God so there is plenty that I do not know. I am fairly familiar with cellular technology so I must say I am somewhat baffled. As I understand it the smartphones are running two different chip sets, the PPC CPU chipset and then the Wireless Chipset. I don't see why there would be any difference hardware speaking in implementing CDMA chipsets rather than GSM. I would think the software with be nearly identical, with maybe a few protocol or driver changes.

I am just extremely Miffed to say the least in the whole handset mess. We have been talking about EV-DO and how it is in working or testing phases allready. Well my question is what the heck good does it do to have the network when there are no handsets, whether Smart or not that use the data and voice capabilities of the new networks. I mean I know there are a few handsets that have 3G Voice but they are "Dumb" phones and still do not use 3G Data.

It's all rediculous.

[Jason Dunn]

I would think the software with be nearly identical, with maybe a few protocol or driver changes.


It's a completely different "radio stack" (that's what MS calls it), and while I wouldn't think it's that hard to create, apparently it is. CDMA will be a bit of a wait yet...

[JMountford]

Thanks for the info Jason. I appreciate it. I find it odd that the king of software is having problems developing what is pretty much hardware drivers. :D

Isn't there someone they can "borrow" the stack from? 8)

It just seams like CDMA is always secondary in terms of device and software developement. Funny thing is as I understand it Everything will eventually becaome CDMA based in the move to a true 3G wireless world.