3G: Advantages and disadvantages

At first sight mobile communication of the third generation may seem very attractive and advantageous for everybody: on the one hand users will get high quality services such as excellent sound quality, fast mobile internet connection, new revolutionary services like video calls or VoIP calls over the internet, on the other hand the mobile operators will get access to the newest market of such services with a high level of demand, and thus can count on getting super-profits within a short period of time. Nevertheless, there are also some negative aspects that need to be considered for both the subscribers and the providers before choosing to use or to provide such third generation services.

As we know, the standard UMTS, which is the most popular and promising technology used by most European providers, is also a completely new technology requiring the installation of new expensive equipment at every base station which is a pretty difficult thing to do taking into consideration the number of such stations in every small city in town. That's why if you don't live in a big city, don't expect new fantastic technologies come to you right away. The job needs time. In this respect the 3G technology yields to the existing GSM networks that exist in almost every small city and village. Thus, the change of the equipment and the software is connected with considerable material costs, that's why only big companies are able to afford that. And, most probably, the cost of the introduction of new equipment and software will be reflected in tariffs, that's why users shouldn't expect new services to be cheap, at least in the beginning.

Another problem arising for those who want to introduce the new technology on the market is the necessity to buy new broadband frequencies which is another financial burden for both the carriers and their subscribers who will have to pay higher prices. In this respect the CDMA technology developing mostly in the USA and Asia has a great advantage over UMTS as the new CDMA2000 uses the same frequencies as the old CDMA450 and the increase of the speed of the data transfer is achieved by improvement of the technology itself, not by acquisition of .

There are also cases when 3G is introduced by brand new companies becoming monopolies on the market. In such cases it is evident that some sort of cooperation is necessary with the existing carriers who will provide roaming services for the clients of such emerging 3G start-ups – wide coverage takes a lot of time and money, of course.

All in all the drawbacks arising from the introduction of third generation networks may be considered insignificant and temporary. We all see that the demand for such type of services is constantly rising – that means the proposition will rise too. In some countries there is already a high level of competition between the mobile providers offering 3G services.

For us, the users, such competition is surely a positive thing. The more companies will try to win our attention, the less the prices will be and the more varied services we'll get. Everyone likes the idea of getting access to the World Wide Web from anywhere. The question is only how soon the proposition will meet the demand.