Telecom companies target SA 3G market

29.11.2004
Von Nicolas Callegari

With all the talk of 3G and the promise that the service may be up and running by the end of the year, Motorola Inc. has come out in support of the technology, saying that it intends to target the South Africa"s 3G market aggressively.

Motorola SA?s product marketing manager for sub-Saharan Africa, Brian Burns, says that the company already has a number of handsets on the way. ?Because 3G will be aimed at the mid- to high-level markets, we will make available two high-end handsets and four mid-range handsets that will be fully 3G and GSM- compatible,? he says.

?However,? he adds, ?over the course of the year, Motorola intends to introduce around 18 phones to the local market.? This approach could give Motorola a major boost in market share, because, to date, no other vendor has announced such a wide range of 3G handsets for the local market.

Nokia Corp., still the local market share leader, currently lists two models that are 3G-compliant on its Web site, as does Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB.

According to Burns, the 3G handsets should not attract as much of a price premium as the industry may expect. ?The phones will range from around R2,500 (US$430) right up to R6,000,? he says, ?which is the average price range for non-3G handsets in the local market.?

While it is still unclear how much 3G services will cost the South African (SA) public, the fact is that they will have to be charged at a much lower rate than the current GPRS offerings, which can cost individuals as much as R50 per MB, if they want to have even the smallest glimmer of hope that they will be successful.

It was previously reported in Computing SA that Vodacom Group CEO, Alan Knott-Craig, said data costs will inevitably come down by as much as 50 percent to help to push the adoption of 3G. All the wonderful services and applications envisaged for 3G will be useless if they are too expensive for people to use frequently.

Regardless, Burns says that 2005 will be the year that 3G will see worldwide mass adoption, although South Africa may still lag behind by as much as 18 months. Following the R5 billion upgrade to the local networks to support 3G, Burns says that South Africa will have one of the most advanced cellular networks in the world.

According to Stefano Mattiello, Motorola regional sales director for sub-Saharan Africa, this will put the networks in a favourable position to compete against Telkom SA Ltd.?s ADSL offerings and Sentech Pty. Ltd.?s MyWireless Broadband products, because connectivity is not limited to handsets.

Where is this all going? The industry is already talking about 4G (or fourth generation) networks, where the theory is that handsets and portable PCs will be given seamless connectivity through the convergence of 3G and other complementary technologies such as WiFi, Wi-Max and GSM, allowing users to roam in and out of wireless hotspots, GSM-covered areas and wireless WANs without having to switch connections.

?This has already been successfully tested in lab environments,? adds Mattiello, ?but it is still way down the line.?

The enthusiasm is there, and the handsets are on their way, it is just up to the networks to get pricing into place that is actually affordable to the SA public.