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Well since I haven't got a mobile can't see me being very interested anyway. Imagine all those drivers peering at crappy little pictures.
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Something else to distract the slow witted.
"I dream of a better world where chickens can cross the road without having their motives questioned." -
What's a 3G??
Clue me in here!Comment
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3G is the new phone which you can see the person talking to you as long as they have a compatable phone that is. This means you can't mouth Fvck off without them knowing it.
Plus theres other bits off useless stuff you can with them no doubt.
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Ahh. Are they out in the US?Comment
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No, I don't think so. The mobile net has to be converted to 3G, it's not just a feature.
I believe it's more a Europe thing at the moment, the japanese has had the technology for quite sometime though. Correct me if I'm wrong.Comment
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It also cost the companies a lot of money to buy the license. Basically the Government ripped them off. At one time it was doubtful whether it would ever see the light of day since market conditions weren't favourable and still aren't.Comment
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oh totaly forgot about 3G first i thought this was a 3GIO thread..... hummm i am way behind in life..... feels like the twighlight zone"They say that dreams are real only as long as they last. Couldn't you say the same thing about life?"Comment
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I don't agree with this statement. The licenses were auctioned. In a well organised auction, you can't rip anyone off. The auctions were somewhat well organised (the rule that a company may not sell the license is a stupid one though, but I'm not sure that rule was implemented in other countries). Actually, Government did a good job by ensuring that the expected economic rents were transferred to the public, not to the shareholders. I for one did not believe in the 3G market and therefor did not buy equities of any telecom firms.Basically the Government ripped them off.
Umf
UmfJoin MURCs Distributed Computing effort for Rosetta@Home and help fight Alzheimers, Cancer, Mad Cow disease and rising oil prices.
[...]the pervading principle and abiding test of good breeding is the requirement of a substantial and patent waste of time. - VeblenComment
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I'll have to look this up but I there was a lot of comments about how the Government handled it over here.Comment
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If I am not mistaken, there were a number of serious contenders and the Goverment decided to auction one license less than there were serious contenders. _IF_ this is true, and _IF_ this is what comments were raised about (notice the IFs, if you please), they were probably raised by the industry, but in fact it is a sound way of doing it. You will not be able to obtain a transfer of economic rents to the Government if the asset you're autioning is not a "scarce" asset.
Could be totally beside the point though. Would like to hear what you find if and when you do.
UmfJoin MURCs Distributed Computing effort for Rosetta@Home and help fight Alzheimers, Cancer, Mad Cow disease and rising oil prices.
[...]the pervading principle and abiding test of good breeding is the requirement of a substantial and patent waste of time. - VeblenComment
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Basically, Umf has it. The government hired a load of economists to model a variety of auction methodologies using game theory, and ended up almost "too" good - the efficiency of the auction at raising as much cash as possible combined with the telcos' projections being made at the height of the tech/comms boom (), meant that when it came to actually building the networks, the telcos were saddled with very high levels of debt, their share prices had collapsed from the bubble (making cash harder to raise), and more realistic projections of future revenue meant that it was very difficult to justify further investment in a 3G network of receivers in a short timeframe. Add to that various rules meaning little network sharing could be undertaken (since relaxed a bit), and it has taken this long to get anywhere. A lot of the negative press towards the govenment was because they had basically managed to be really lucky/clever and time it right getting the most amount of cash out of the telcos as possible. Some whingeing by the telcos was aimed at getting concessions from the regulators after the licenses were issued (Along the lines of "We won't be able to build a 3G network unless you let us share networks/pay for the licenses over the next 300 years at 0% interest and not all at once right now" etc).
An example of government bods actually using their heads for once - unlike when they sold lots of gold reserves:
Gordon Brown: "We're about to dump a load of gold onto the market because the price is good and we don't really need it anymore"
Gold spot price: collapses
Lesson #1: never tell a market full of speculators what you are about to do, and then go ahead and do it!
DM says: Crunch with Matrox Users@ClimatePrediction.netComment
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The big QUESTION is...WHAT GOVERNMENT!!!Comment
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Uh?Join MURCs Distributed Computing effort for Rosetta@Home and help fight Alzheimers, Cancer, Mad Cow disease and rising oil prices.
[...]the pervading principle and abiding test of good breeding is the requirement of a substantial and patent waste of time. - VeblenComment
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The UK government of course, or more specifically the Treasury and Gordon Brown's advisors.DM says: Crunch with Matrox Users@ClimatePrediction.netComment
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