The head of Swedish telecom giant Ericsson AB said yesterday that Taiwanese acceptance of the third-generation (3G) or high-speed mobile Internet services is expected to be high, given the public's strong interest in cutting-edge technologies.
"I believe Taiwan will be an early adopter of 3G services," said Kurt Hellstrom, president and CEO of Ericsson.
Premium mobile services permit the exchange of photos, movie clips, screensavers and ring tones as well as playing online games. All require the higher transmission bandwidth that only 3G networks can deliver.
Hellstrom made the remarks at Globecom 2002, the world's largest gathering of academics and professionals from the telecom industry, held at the Taipei World Trade Center. The bi-annual event kicked off yesterday and will run through Thursday.
Hellstrom said high licensing fees for 3G in Europe have left operators deep in debt and delayed deployment schedules. But, in Taiwan the outlook should be positive, with licensing fees more affordably priced and companies cautiously planning the launch of services, he said.
Taiwan issued five 3G licenses in February, generating fees totaling NT$48.9 billion.
Meanwhile, Jan Signell, the president of Ericsson Taiwan said that to a certain degree, Japanese and Taiwanese consumer behavior is similar, therefore some of the technology trends going on in Japan are likely to work here.
One example is J-Phone, the third-largest mobile carrier in Japan. The company launched service in November 2000, allowing users to snap a digital photo with a handset built into the camera, see it displayed directly on the screen and send it off as an e-mail. By August this year, nearly half of J-Phone's 13 million subscribers have registered for this service, he added.
"I am sure it will work very well here in Taiwan too," he said. "Mobile multimedia has great potential," he added.
Meanwhile, Hellstrom said the global mobile communication market for next year still looks gloomy.
"We estimate next year's [global telecom networking] market size will be about the same as this year."
According to Gartner Dataquest, an US-based information-technology industry research center, infrastructure builders are unlikely to recover anytime soon.
"Most telecom service providers over-invested in infrastructure before 2000, making the following years difficult for equipment vendors," Dean Eyers, vice president of the center, said earlier this year.
Worldwide telecom equipment sales in 2000 was nearly US$390 million, and that figure is estimated to drop to US$380 million this year, Gartner said.
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