Vodacom pipped at 3G post

Mauritius, 30 Nov 2004

Mauritian cellular operator Emtel last night stole Vodacom`s thunder, when it launched its third-generation (3G) network, making it the first operator on the African continent to offer commercial 3G services.

While neither Emtel nor Vodacom would be drawn on suggestions of a race to be the first operator to offer commercial 3G services, both had been expected to launch their service sometime in December.

According to Shyam Roy, CEO of Emtel, among the services to be offered are high-speed mobile Internet (at speeds of up to 384Kbps), multimedia messaging, observation cameras (for checking traffic or home security), location-based services, video services, games, music and infonews (such as sports results).

"The decision to make ICT a dynamic and important part of our economy is now paying dividends, as nations which get on the information highway quickly find it easy to remain at the technological forefront, which is why we made the decision to allow a 3G roll-out," says Mauritian IT and telecommunications minister, Pradeep Jeeha.

"Service providers, retailers and value-added network services will all stand to gain from this project, which will create new opportunities for our people, such as mobile shopping and payments. In fact, Mauritius has been asked to present its case study for 3G at the 3G World Summit, to be held early next year."

"A little over 15 years ago, Emtel launched the first mobile service in the Southern Hemisphere, and now we are the first to offer 3G in Africa," says Emtel MD, Bashir Currimjee.

"To date we have invested around 1.5 billion rupees in our quest to promote Mauritius as a cyber-island and to help grow our ICT sector."

Currimjee says the 3G roll-out was also made possible through the government, which provided a stable and beneficial regulatory environment, and through technology partner Huawei.

Roy believes it is a bold decision to bring in 3G when many developed nations are still pondering the technology. He says it a source of pride for the people of Mauritius to be the first in Africa to have a commercial 3G network.

"After conducting detailed investigations into human needs and behaviour, we can now provide our people with a tool that can do almost anything, and which is the next best thing to being there.

"We are now moving our sector and our nation from 2G to 3G, from the old to the new, and most importantly, from today into tomorrow."

Coming soon to SA

Vodacom, in partnership with one of its major shareholders, Vodafone, is expected to launch its 3G cellular service within the next two weeks, and MTN is expected to follow suit soon.

Tomi Ahonen, a 3G strategy consultant formerly of Nokia`s 3G Business Consultancy, recently told a First Tuesday Vodacom Mobile Connect event that 3G has many advantages for the local market, both in terms of the high-end business sector, which requires rapid access to data, and the young, hip crowd that demands quality entertainment services.

While the trendy youth market is eagerly anticipating 3G benefits such as receiving broadband services like movie clips and video conferencing, some telecoms players warn that these services will not come cheaply. Yesterday, Gavin Penkin, ExactMobile`s director of portals and mobile entertainment, said that in a best-case scenario, to download a 30-second clip of 2.5MB would cost the consumer R20 plus another R25 to pay for the rights.

"This rate could be too high for the consumer right now. It means the network operator would have to lower its data charges or include the data fee within the content fee," he said.

Handset distributors are already preparing for the 3G roll-out locally. Last week, Motorola unveiled six new 3G handset models priced between R2 500 and R6 000. Motorola project manager Brian Burns said 2005 would see mass adoption of 3G internationally, although SA would probably not see mass adoption before 2008.