Re: Cellular phone networks in US, Europe and Japan - what data rates ?

Hi,

thank you for the information !

> Italy was the first european country which experienced the crossover of mobile
> phones on fixed phones, some years ago. 

Are you sure ? I bet it was Finland.

> phone and a lot of people thinks to unsubscribe their home phone connection.

In Finland most people even did not think about a solid line phone
connection ;-)

> internet, and when I came back to Italy, it was a revolution: everywhere people
> talked about wap, operators advertisings were only on wap services, etc. It was
> shocking.

Yes. That they do in Germany also very good. Advertising. But if you read
the tests CT e.g. made and if I ask people who really want to use it they
only say it is not what they expect. One example was that it takes much
more time to order a ticket via WAP than just to call - and as result it
even cost more. 

> I can tell you that in Italy, much more than in the rest of Europe, mobile
> Internet is very very popular. I work in the US (Silicon Valley) now, and I found
> that here it is not as popular as it is in Italy since at least 1 year.

That is what shocked me a bit to. I came to Portland to work on my Thesis
and before I was in Finland for several months. Such a different world
concerning cell phones and their usage patterns. Even companies in Finland
give you a cell phone number as contact number. No matter if a 5 year old
children or a 70 year old lady - everybody uses them. And it is as cheap
as a solid libe phone.
And here - I met only a view students who own a cell phone. And mobile
Internet services nobody used with these phones. And I never understood 
why they don't use the SMS services at all here. Nobody does that. In
Finland and Germany it is so popular that the telecom companies make
more money with the SMS than with the voice mail boxes e.g. But I think 
it is because of the local calls for free thing here and that the use of
mobile phones here is still expensive (roaming, I have to pay when I get a
call ... ).

> considered as not too expensive in Italy. But maybe a traffic-based charge would
> be more appreciated.

Yes. I bet this is going to change the whole thing a bit.

Some more detailed data about the use/day/user (only the WAP
services) would be really interesting. 
Does anybody know an URL where we could find that information regarding
the usage statistics in different countries ?

frank

Received on Tuesday, 7 November 2000 15:22:04 UTC