The dilemma and Dawn of GPRS and WAP

The hot topic of mobile communication, like Merry-go, always revolves around the direction of the market. Last year's new technology hotspot is WAP, later because of being shut out of the market, this topic also is not hot up. This year's hot topic turned to GPRS and Bluetooth technology, but they are in the eyes of the vast number of consumers is just a cup of warm tea. And next year? It's about 3G, but people seem to be tired of the 3G, and people have some fresh feelings about 4G.

Since the 1997 GSM World Congress, four years have passed, but GPRS still failed to reach people's expectations of the level, there are many major technical problems have not been satisfactory answers, so there is no qualification for large-scale access to the consumer market door. However, people still hope that GPRS can be put into the market early to save WAP to get out of trouble. Analysts generally believe that GPRS is the ideal springboard for 2G transition to 3G, so the industry is worried that the GPRS delayed deployment will directly affect the 3G plan to introduce this year's timetable. More conservative at the same time also more realistic view is that by 2002, GPRS will not have a larger market share.

The repeated postponement of GPRS's formal debut has puzzled many operators. What exactly is the problem? Is it a cell phone problem? Interconnection, interoperability issues? Billing issues? Or is it some other technical problem? Is it too far ahead, too fast? In fact, there are all these problems that cannot be attributed to a problem. Here, people often put GPRS can not be the responsibility of the plan to blame the mobile phone provider failed to provide the required mobile phones on schedule. It's not really fair. (Computer science)

Analysts believe that the problem of network capacity is equally important, the day does not solve, everything will be unable to move. The data rate provided by GPRS also has some problems. In the current development phase, most GPRS handsets provide a time slot on the uplink, and the downlink provides 2 to 3 slots. The rate of each time slot is 14.4kb/s, the throughput is 28.8kb/s or 43.2kb/s (ideally, and network capacity is sufficient). In actual situation, the rate will decrease greatly with the increase of network load. The industry agrees that it is time to revise the potential rate that GPRS can support, and to realistically disclose the actual situation to the vast majority of consumers in order to eliminate the consumer's high expectations of the current product, thus correcting the potential consumer's inappropriate view of the product.

In addition to the speed of mobile phones, there are actually more important factors than the application, such as the user can get the service content at this stage is still very few. It is often forgotten that GPRS is at best a bearer technology and does not include the business content it can carry. There is no rich and the majority of users are willing to accept the content, GPRS business provider is destined to have no money to earn. To say who can make money, that is the network operators! The experience of WAP fiasco should be a cautionary tale. In addition, the market problem is also a matter of concern. For example, traditional network operators have become accustomed to monopolistic practices, the sole owner of the network infrastructure and the monopoly of users and all business and applications. After the telecom market is open, developers involved in the development of business content and applications will also have to earn a bit of money, not always offering "free lunches" like dot com. Therefore, GPRS or 3G to be successful, network operators and business and application developers should establish a sincere partnership, and jointly promote GPRS and 3G operations in the global deployment is the best policy. Although such partnerships are difficult to accept for companies accustomed to monopolies, this may be the only way out. Another problem is the billing problem. Reasonable and practicable tariff standards should be established from the outset.

Experience has shown that if the ability to publicize GPRS and the quality of the time can not be cashed, must be severely criticized by all sides; Conversely, if too cautious, the market will complain. It seems that the industry is in a dilemma. Some entrepreneurs think that the lack of a decisive attitude to the GPRS market is also unfavorable, because it will directly affect the implementation of the 3G plan, and even think GPRS only successful, not to fail, or 3G would be a fatal blow. But if the 3G plan is postponed, the boom of the GPRS market can be prolonged. The world is so full of contradictions. Optimistic analysts say the GPRS outlook is generally less bleak. Many countries and regions have signed a contract to order the GPRS system, and even some operators open commercial or quasi-commercial GPRS business.

WAP was a bad beginning, a surprise to many operators. The style of WAP debut contrasts with the indifference of consumers. People have high expectations of WAP, but today almost no one to say a good word for him; WAP fiasco aftershocks still make the industry lingering fear, have to seriously consider the next move of chess.

Faced with the indifference of the market to WAP, operators can only save the first line of WAP hope for the success of GPRS. But people may not be pleased with GPRS, afraid of bad but will be counterproductive, accelerate the deterioration of the problem. GPRS may bring 3 magic weapon to WAP: greatly shorten the connecting time, enlarge the bandwidth, and reduce the tariff. But WAP lacks the useful content, this also is the GPRS weak link.

The failure of WAP and GPRS to blame technology alone is not good, but should be blamed on the experts who exaggerate. The consumer is fair, as long as you are telling the truth, there is less discussion.