| Big Ron
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08-15-2003 03:02 PM ET (US)
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I for one don't agree (what else is new?!) To find THE areas with growth potential... follow the USAF. In Afghanistan and Iraq, they've all-but wiped out the landline networks, and in both cases, reconstruction is based very heavily on mobile networks. They're quicker, easier and more convenient to set up. While I'd not suggest that Afghanistan is going to become a powerful example to the world, Iraq... maybe. When they sort out their current problems, they're going to be the ONLY industrial nation in the world where mobile phones are the backbone of communications. The race between GSM and landline is being restarted there, with GSM being given a head start. If they get the pricing right, it's a start they should be able to maintain. With oil revenues (what's left after GW's campaign-donors have been paid-off with lucrative contracts) they're going to be affluent, and able to afford modern phones. And they're a sizeable market - worth getting involved in. If they develop the experience, the whole middle east speaks much the same language and that experience means they don't need to repeatedly re-invent the wheel (unlike incoming competition) So... my (superficially unlikely) nominee for "Mobile Giant" in 2010 is -Iraq.
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Guy Kewney
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08-16-2003 05:24 AM ET (US)
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Good point! :-)
But I was thinking of how that infrastructure is distributed. In Europe, you can pretty much guarantee that there's a phone cable (fibre of some sort) running past wherever you want to erect a mobile phone mast.
In "developing" countries - whatever the reason for the slow start - this network of phone cable doesn't exist, and wireless comes to the rescue.
My curiosity is about what sort of network it will set up. Will it be a mobile phone network? or will it be an Internet network, based on TCP/IP over Ethernet cable/ long-haul wireless?
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