IP: How the world caught third-generation fever

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

>From: "the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow" <geoff@iconia.com>
>To: "Dave E-mail Pamphleteer Farber" <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
>
>
>How the world caught third-generation fever
>
>The bidding for 3G mobile licences marked the turning point in an investment
>frenzy that sucked in $4,000bn, says Dan Roberts
>Published: September 5 2001 17:53GMT
>The Financial Times
>
>One of the biggest handwritten cheques ever cashed was scribbled in a hurry
>in the spring of 2000 by four men who had barely seen daylight for seven
>weeks. The team worked for Orange, in London's West End, one of five mobile
>phone companies that paid a total of £22.5bn during a government auction for
>licences to operate "third-generation" mobile services in the UK.
>
>It has become clear in the past few months that the frantic bidding for
>these and other 3G mobile licences throughout western Europe marked the
>turning-point in a four-year investment frenzy that ultimately sucked in
>$4,000bn (£2,800bn) worldwide.
>
>To understand how an entire industry could gamble and lose such sums,
>picture the manifest destiny that inspired Orange's team of bidders. Their
>cramped office could be reached only through four separate security doors,
>each with sophisticated combination locks and swipe-card systems. The
>windows were blacked out to prevent anyone observing the bidding tactics
>with binoculars. During the auction, the room was regularly swept for
>electronic listening devices.
>
>--SNIP--
>
>One of the most influential regular studies of mobile phone use, produced by
>A.T. Kearney management consultants and Cambridge Business School, is due to
>reveal tomorrow that most consumers are utterly uninterested in surfing the
>internet from their mobile phone. Of 2,400 mobile phone users interviewed,
>just 4 per cent said they thought they were ever likely to use their phone
>to spend money online (down from 12 per cent in the last survey, six months
>ago). Only 2 per cent had tried to do this with existing generations of
>internet-enabled phones, which have already cost the industry hundreds of
>millions of dollars to deploy.
>
>--SNIP--
>
>http://tm0.com/sbct.cgi?s=125256324&i=387239&d=1741227
>
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>geoff.goodfellow@iconia.com, Prague CZ * tel/mobil +420 (0)603 706 558
>"success is getting what you want & happiness is wanting what you get"
>http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/01/biztech/articles/17drop.html



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