Swedish mobile retailer Geab The Phonehouse says unmetered GPRS access has not boosted GPRS sales.
Swedish mobile phone retailer Geab The Phonehouse has said that even though the country’s three largest mobile operators have all started offering flat-rate GPRS mobile Internet access, it has not seen significant consumer interest in GPRS handsets.
This could be taken as bad news for the industry. GPRS is significantly faster than GSM data services, but is still slower than a desktop modem. Its major advantage for many people is its ‘always-on’ capacity, meaning consumers do not need to make a phone call to access online services.
In most markets, GPRS operators charge their customers per megabyte transmitted or by using a time-based pricing model. Many believe this has deterred people from using the service, judging by the experience of landline Internet access. But if Geab’s figures are representative, the Swedish experience seems to refute this view. This could prove worrying to the industry, given the large data revenues required to justify operators’ investments in 2.5G and 3G technology.
This is not the best way to interpret the news. Flat-rate access should prove a major draw for customers – but not enough to kick-start the market on its own. Because of the problems with WAP, and because of market leader Nokia’s problems in launching a GPRS handset, consumers are reluctant to trust the service. At the same time, operators are not heavily marketing the service, partly because there are not yet enough applications available.
The recent launch of Nokia’s 8310 GPRS handset will help the market. At the same time, operators need to create incentives for people to get GRPS handsets. Vodafone’s decision this week to allow subscribers to access the Internet using their laptop over GPRS is another service that will drive uptake. Getting used to mobile services will take time, but using a laptop is a model that people already understand.
As consumer acceptance grows, GPRS sales will follow. Indeed, Datamonitor expects 27 million GPRS handsets will be sold next year in Europe alone.
