No No No, EVERYONE Is Supposed to Have One

OK, so 3G comes in for a power of stick about whether or not it is a viable technology ( a friend of mine refers to it as the step you skip on the way to 4G) and, above all, whether it can be made to pay. By the look of it the answers are Yes and No. This story from the BBC talks about a computer demo and training bus on the Isle of man that uses a 3G phone to connect a whole busload, 20 machines, to the net, giving faster connections than the kids in terrestrial cable networks get in their classrooms. One machine in the bus acts as a server to all the others and it all runs through the 3G phone. Score one for "Does the technology work?"

Of course, the Telco business model is that

1. we will all need 20 times the bandwidth sufficient for a classroom full of kids
2. We will need it available all the time
3. We can afford US$600 for the connection device and
4. pay whatever it takes for the traffic

What the story doesn't talk about is the cost of that traffic and how the 3G handset is powered or how much traffic in absolute terms it handles or how hot it gets running that traffic and how long it can keep it up. Whole lot of questions still hanging there and the release today of the new Ericsson phones with clip-on and built in cameras, with and without flash, don't give me any confidence that it is going to succeed as a business. How many phones (between $350 and $700+) and how much traffic at what cost will it take to make 3G a going proposition? Answer, more than its going to get.