Neil Ward-Dutton, Ovum’s research director advised that firms should explore the potential of GPRS, which he says, “will enable downloads of about 28 kilobits per second” by the time 3G services become viable. According to Ovum, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), despite being the subject of considerable criticism, also has much potential for business. “Companies that ignore WAP as a business tool are missing the point…you can now access many corporate applications using WAP.”
The 3G infrastructure has faced further scrutiny in research by PricewaterhouseCoopers. According to one of the firm’s consultants, Phil Irvine, incumbent mobile operators have little to gain from sharing 3G infrastructure. Businesses that do so, says Irvine, are “giving a hand-up to somebody else.”
Irvine said that research carried out by PwC indicated that incumbent mobile operators would be well advised to ensure that they meet the minimum coverage requirements of their UMTS licenses but to avoid network sharing.