Olongapo Telecom & Information Technology

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Content to drive 3G adoption in RP

By Erwin Lemuel Oliva, INQ7.net

WILL it be video streaming, video on demand, video calls or mobile television? Mobile phone operators reveal content expected to drive third-generation (3G) mobile technology in the Philippines.

For Globe Telecom, video streaming and video calls are applications expected to drive usage or adoption of third-generation (3G) mobile networks. However, citing the Philippine mobile phone industry's experience with short messaging service (SMS) or texting, their guess is as good as any industry pundit.

Rodolfo Salalima, Globe senior vice president for corporate and regulatory affairs, said "video streaming" or broadcasting short videos to mobile phone subscribers would likely attract more people to 3G.

"But remember texting, nobody knew it would fly when it was introduced," added Salalima. Globe was the local operator who introduced SMS to Filipinos. But it was an application initially marketed for mute subscribers, as attested by a Globe advertisement that came out years back. However, Filipinos found better use for texting, and to date, close to 150 million text messages are being sent a day by close to 40 million subscribers in the country.

Applications based on SMS have also emerged and still are quite popular in the country, despite multimedia messaging service offerings, which allow subscribers to send multimedia messages to others.

"We really to have realistically perceive where demand [for 3G] will come from. We will then offer services based on these [judgment]," the Globe executive said.

Local operators are however sure that 3G services would likely serve a niche market.

"We will see 3G services being deployed in urban areas but our history dictates that we'll also give focus on provincial areas. After the granting of the 3G license, we're expected to rollout 3G services nationwide," said Ramon Isberto, Smart Communications public affairs head.

National Telecommunications Commission chairman Ronald Solis said that 3G services will definitely cater to a niche market in the Philippines. Solis did not specify however which market he was referring to.

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