A retrospective on the mobile field 2008 - Part two

Free is still a candidate for the fourth 3G license
The summer holidays had finished and Xavier Niel, the major shareholder of Illiad started to question the fourth 3G license by indicating his interest in it so that bhe could help reduce the prices of mobile phones.

The businessman saw Free as a player to shake up the market in what is currently quite a regulated situation, by anticipating the halving of mobile bills. Public consultation on the question was still underway, so a small push wouldn’t hurt his cause.

He also planned to not just leave the decision in the hands of lobbyists for the carriers, who wouldn’t hear of a new player in their market. Over the following weeks, he declarations of intent and position taking would increase.

PMT remains a difficult question
Despite the efforts to deploy Personal Mobile Television (PMT), the aspect of economic models would be looked at in September 2008. The standard was chosen, the candidates for the available channels were selected by the CSA, but the question was still to be answered as to who would be paying to create the broadcast network?

Which hand sets would be offered? What revenue streams would be implemented? Channels and telecommunication carriers put forward their arguments but nothing concrete would emerge. It seems that Mobile TV wouldn’t be available until 2009, and not the end of 2008 as hoped.

At the end of the year, with road blocks still being put up everywhere, the government decided that they would mediate at the beginning of 209. In September, PMT was still a subject that needed a lot of discussion.

WiMAX in France, an ongoing subject
Arcep the French telecommunications regulator summarized the deployment of WiMAX in the country and noticed that the players were very late on the coverage objectives fixed when the licenses were attributed.

Arcep understood the arguments and decided not to punish the companies. But they have increased the pressure by requesting regular feedback every six months until 2010, the next coverage evaluation date.

The T-Mobile G1, the first Android smartphone, appears on the market
After months of speculation, the first smartphone using the Google Android system was presented to the world. T-Mobile USA had exclusive rights to this, with it being the only device available until the end of 2008.

Assembled by HTC, the T-Mobile G1 has a tactile screen and a full keyboard under the screen. The hand set has a lot of options, even if it didn’t get the same attention that the iPhone did at launch. This was a good opportunity to see Android, outside of the emulators and in real production.

Like the iPhone, the T-Mobile G1 has a range of applications that can be downloaded from the Android market. The United Kingdom will follow in November but for the rest of Europe nothing would be seen until 2009. The following months would see a lot of comparisons between the T-Mobile G1 and the iPhone.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1: The launch
During the MWC 2008 show in February, Sony Ericsson created a surprise by launching their first hand set operating Windows Mobile. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 is built by HTC but has an interface made from dynamic panels which are in the form of shortcuts.

The product is an important one as the maker had seen a slowdown in sales since the beginning of the year. Getting a more positive look with a powerful top of the line model was therefore their goal.

The device is promising and has everything that you could hope for in a smartphone of this type. After a long delay in getting the device right, which lead to rumors that the delays were due to last minute configurations, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 was officially release at the end of September in just a few markets. In France, we have to wait until the beginning of December to see it on the shelves.