Article re-printed with kind permission from GSM Q, June 2000 Issue 17

In this issue's review, the Global mobile Suppliers Association looks at the delivery of new services to customers, and GSA president Alan Hadden discusses the progress of the 3G licensing process.

GSM passed another huge milestone in May reaching 300 million customers worldwide - a fantastic achievement. In fact, the latest 100 million net additions were added in only nine months. GSM remains the best commercial example of delivering results in the market, one which is, at the same time, highly competitive. GSM has also demonstrated that it is the lowest cost route to mobility, fastest rollout and payback, globally.

Operators and suppliers are working in partnership to deliver value to all segments of the marketplace while opening up new groups of users. As an example, the huge explosion in SMS usage shows the popularity of messaging services, and here it is the youth market which is leading growth. As the market grows and new segments are opened up, we should expect that most people will have at least one mobile device in the very near future. Thus, using percentage penetration as a measure of progress and market maturity even now seems rather quaint.

The introduction of WAP-enabled services is opening up wireless Internet access to the mass market. As the availability and range of WAP-enabled terminals has expanded, so have prices fallen in the most competitive markets, sometimes down to zero. What are needed now are the applications. Experience with WAP services will give some operators a vital lead when GPRS and 3G, with their even wider ranges of services, are introduced. Operators and suppliers need to work together on this to ensure that would-be customers are attracted rather than alienated by what is on offer.

NTT DoCoMo's pioneering i-Mode service has shown what can be done even at today's relatively low data rates. Subscribers to i-Mode can access over 9,000 voluntary web sites making it Japan's largest Internet access platform, with the number of i-Mode-accessible web sites increasing by 40-50 every day.

Mobile phones - GSM phones in particular - are being embraced as a key competitive tool in other markets. For example, several of the UK's "new economy" financial services companies, whose origins range from supermarkets to building societies, are positioning wireless access to personal bank accounts via the Internet as a key value-added service, in their battle to attract customers from traditional banks.

Fundamental step
Of course, the access, information transfer and interactivity times involved in all these services will significantly shorten with GPRS, which is a fundamental step towards deployment of 3G mobile multimedia services. As the market develops, EDGE and/or IMT-2000/UMTS will follow.

GSA's members are the leading GSM and 3G suppliers worldwide, representing an 80 per cent market share globally. GSA is playing a key role at this crucial time in a number of areas. For instance, helping to clarify the opportunities that derive from deploying new and evolving GSM technologies, advising on how to prepare mobile businesses for 3G mobile multimedia services, and helping to ensure efficient migration strategies.

GSA takes as its responsibility addressing the market side - which no other body does - leaving the detailed technical topics and standards production to others such as standards bodies and operators groups. Within GSA we list the issues inventory as:

-		next generation, including new applications such as WAP and IPv6;
-		regional expansion, particularly in Latin America;
-		cross-industry co-operation and integration - key to building e-commerce information management - bringing clarity to a sometimes confused and overwhelmed market;
-		spectrum and flexibility issues (GSM offers enormous capacity potential in well-engineered networks); and
-		public affairs

We are working together as the global suppliers group with operators, standards bodies, politicians, the media, and partner organisations to deliver results from programmes we have put in place regionally, and globally. We believe strongly in results through partnership, dialogue and joint activities. This is already evident from the various programmes in place with the UMTS Forum, the GSM Association and ETSI. We will deliver market-focused inputs to the 3GPP Organisational Partners and PCG meetings in Beijing in mid-July.

There are, of course, other areas in which we can play a part. The release of the GSM 400 standard is creating a lot of interest worldwide amongst NMT operators considering migrating to digital services. In a recent poll, 85 per cent of them chose GSM 400 as their preferred solution. We are also talking with several GSM operators who appreciate the benefits of multiband working. GSM 400 offers the same features and evolution path to 3G services via HSCSD, GPRS, EDGE, etc. as GSM's other bands of 900, 1800, and 1900 MHz.

But all the talk - and action - today is about 3G; new services, applications, and licensing. Suppliers are involved in tendering activities throughout the world, in supporting their customers and developing new products in shortening cycles, and in offering expertise. For example, the issue of identifying expansion spectrum for IMT-2000/3G mobile services was a key item for WRC-2000 in Istanbul in May. GSA members were able to support the national delegations by bringing their expertise to the complex discussions.

Alan Hadden, president GSA

Further information about the GSA

Press Archive