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posted by mpawlo
on Monday September 16, @02:56PM
from the more-than-three-g:s dept.
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In a moment of outspokeness, Michael Treschow, chairman of Swedish telecom giant Ericsson, blames the European governments for the 3G failure, Swedish Ny Teknik reports. 3G is the third generation of mobile telephony, scheduled to be introduced on the market... sometime! European telcos suffer from dire straits and Treschow blames policy for the delay. The fees for the 3G licenses in Europe amounts to about USD 150 billion (SEK 1.000 billion), a 'devestating tax' according to Treschow.
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All European countries but Sweden and Finland issued its 3G licenses through auctions. 58 licenses were issued in total, draining funds from the telcos. In Finland and Sweden so-called beauty contests were used to issue the licenses. However, the result is the same in practice. No 3G operators offer services to the consumer. In Sweden and Finland operators promised too much in the beauty contests and today fail in building the 3G networks.
I would personally think an auction would be the most efficient way to issue licenses, but since the licenses were sold at the most overheated time in the telco bubble the prices for licenses skyrocketed. One wonders what the perfect spectrum distribution scenario would be. Meanwhile, the states gained some cash on behalf of the shareholders and the consumers still do not have 3G...
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License Policy Ruined 3G
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Death of AM stereo. No interoperability among US wireless networks. Failure of EU 3G networks.
What do all three have in common? Governments forgetting that broadcast spectrum is a public resource and either:
a) auctioning it off to the highest bidder, or
b) failing to mandate interoperability standards among service providers.
Originally US wireless carriers favored a "hands off" approach thinking they would benefit from mini-monopolies (my words, not the CTIA's) where no other carrier would use the same standards. Now with most of these smaller carriers merging, they're having to rebuild entire networks to have compatibility across regional boundaries. Not to mention carriers never got economies of scale from vendors, because vendors knew there was no open market for proprietary equipment.
I find it interesting that when the EU pursues US policy, it fails faster. But the US policy is still bad policy.
Failure to treat radio spectrum as a public resource does no one, carriers, subscribers, or vendors, good in the long run. Without uniform interoperability standards and licenses issued based on public benefit of spectrum utilization, everyone end up short a few years down the road.
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Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be
lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.
- Isaac Asimov
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