[3g-g]

I've heard a lot of bad press about 3, from poor CS through to HO problems... however, one of my former colleagues left to go work for Three, and he's an intelligent guy so I don't think he'll of made a slap-dash decision if the compay didn't offer prospects.

I talked to thim the other day about their network, the lack of Internet access, data speeds etc and he told me a couple of interesting things. The main one being the work 3 are putting into their actual network, not so much the expansion of the 3g coverage, but the underlying network infrastrucure. Apparently 3 was launched on the "cheap", not much thought into interconnects to a few things, partly a reason that you can't have open internet access. But at the moment he's undertaking work to vastly improve the inner workings, with 3 moving to a fully IP based network. Now thats advanced for a mobile network.

I think what this will mean for the consumer is a couple of things. Possibly full high 3g speed internet access, not just to the 3 portal, but onto the information superhighway. On the downside I think 3 will bring their prices up, they won't be able to sustain these cheap giveaway call prices people are getting used to.

We shall have to wait and see, expect to see change towards the end of '05 start '06.

[Ben]

It's certainly very encouraging that Three appear to be settling down for the long haul. A fully IP based network would indeed be very exciting - do you know if it's going to be IPv6? They're going to need a lot of addresses! The benefits of making everything IP based are endless, and I'm certain that some very interesting applications and devices will be developed that make full use of it. It may even reach a stage where you're just billed for packets of data and you can choose your own voice provider - like Skype - so you can have one number and take it with you wherever you are, from the PC to whatever mobile you have!

I think concentrating on reinforcing the network they have will do the world of good for their reputation. If they do indeed plan to launch business tariffs they're going to need to offer a better service level - it wont be easy to tear businesses away from huge telco's like Vodafone unless reliability is guaranteed.

Great info! Thanks!