GSMA looks beyond the handset to '3G everywhere'
Published: 20 November, 2008
READ MORE: Handset
The GSM Association knows that the secret to mobile industry expansion in developed markets will lie in new applications and in a move well beyond the traditional handset. It has recently been busy setting up initiatives to stimulate this trend, and has followed an effort for mobile broadband laptops and dongles, kicked off earlier this year, with last week's call for all handsets to incorporate NFC for mobile payments. Now its latest activity focus on incorporating 3G connectivity into a vast range of devices, across the consumer electronics, clean energy, healthcare, transport and utilities sectors.
The Association's 'Embedded Mobile' initiative is centered on Huawei and eight major operators including Vodafone and Telecom Italia. It aims to encourage manufacturers from outside the telecoms industry to include 3G modules in products from cameras and cars to environmental sensors and electricity meters.
Huawei's interest is clear - the Chinese vendor already has strong manufacturing and supply chain economies - necessary to play in the embedded module game - and has made a strong mark on the booming USB 3G dongle sector. The modules, which consist of a 3G modem and software, can relay a continuous stream of real time data and images and are sufficiently low power to support monitoring applications as well as high speed consumer or business apps.
The operators signed up so far are Korea's KTF, Canada's Rogers Wireless, The Philippines' Smart, Japan's Softbank, Telefonica of Spain, Telstra of Australia, Telecom Italia and Vodafone. The first priority is to develop a common application interface (API) so that consumer products with embedded 3G modules will work with any 3G network, and this should appear by the second half of next year.
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