OXFORD, United Kingdom-Unlike the hype that surrounded the launch of Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) services, European mobile operators are taking a conservative approach to how General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) will be commercially deployed.
This time, no TV advertisements proclaim the wonders of accessing the Internet from a WAP handset. Instead, operators are conducting small-scale commercial pilots in an attempt to better understand how the technology works within a live network, and more importantly, what the data use profiles of these potential users are.
BT Cellnet of the United Kingdom and Germany’s T-Mobil are two of the more notable operators that have “launched” GPRS services. However, Cellnet is careful to say the service will only be available to a small number of its corporate customers in selected locations.
The reasons behind this approach, according to a leading handset developer, are twofold. First, the operator has a much better understanding of how this small selection of corporate users might be using the GPRS data service. Second, if things start to go wrong, the operator can quickly step in and handle the problem-which would be more difficult to control with a widespread consumer trial.
Other operators are piloting services without an Internet Protocol (IP) billing system in operation. This move, according to Per Nordl”f, Ericsson vice president of business development and technology for its GSM, TDMA and EDGE division, is an attempt by operators to gain an early market share.
“There are lots of exceptions being made,” he said. “The lack of a sophisticated billing system would not necessarily stop an operator from launching GPRS. We, and other manufacturers, can provide operators with the basic technology that would enable them to take information, such as data volume, out of the system and then convert it to something that corresponds to a time-based charging. So the existing billing system can use time as the input by converting data volume into time-based charging.”
But Nordl”f admits this is not a typical route and this, together with any other makeshift technology, would need to be thoroughly sorted out by the time there are hundreds of thousands of GPRS users.
The handset question
The age-old problem of handset availability still remains a question for GPRS services. Currently, an adequate number seem to be flowing through; Ericsson claims it will be shipping tens of thousands per month by year-end, with the promise of “hundreds of thousands” by first-quarter 2001. More concerning are reports of incomplete interoperability testing between handsets and infrastructure.
Sonera, the Finnish GSM operator, confirmed some degree of intervendor testing has taken place, but GPRS roaming, a vital feature for the business user, is still only being worked out. Jukka Mutanen, Sonera’s product development manager, said, “There should be less problem with GPRS interoperability than we have seen with WAP handsets working with particular WAP gateway technology.”
Industry analysts are less happy, and claim while interoperability testing among the different vendors’ infrastructure has been completed, many compatibility issues at the air interface level remain due to the complex technology involved.
Regardless of technology uncertainties, Mutanen strongly advises operators not to ignore the GPRS data services they will make available. “We recommend a totally open strategy be adopted with regard to the provision of data services … . The fewer the applications available, the less people will use the service,” he said.
