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Background
The European mobile communications sector has been very successful
notably through the development of the second generation (GSM) mobile
telephony with European users having fully embraced the services
that this technology provides (65% of the EU population currently
subscribe to GSM). As the technology evolves from 2G (mainly GSM)
to 2.5 (GPRS) and to 3G (UMTS) the scope of the services and applications
that can be provided is significantly enlarged, to an extent which
is not yet fully understood in terms of possibilities and potentialities.
In order to ensure a coherent and harmonised development of European
wide consumer appealing services and applications, the European
Commission -under the Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme-
aims to launch a new initiative to support developing/trialing/validating
of new multimedia rich services and applications on a Pan-European
basis.
The European Commission in two recent communications (the communication
on "Introduction of third generation mobile communications
in the European Union: State of Play and the Way Forward",
and the e-Europe 2002 Action Plan has stressed the need for concrete
actions regarding the mobile communications sector, in light of
the fact that the markets for 2.5 and 3G remain largely untested.
While there are indications that the new mobile data services could
rapidly generate strong market demand, it is vital for all sector
actors to gain experience with new mobile value added services and
applications.
Prior consultation with Industry
A first high-level meeting with some major players in the domain
including operators, manufacturers and service providers took place
last May 3rd in Brussels to consult on the best way to put in place
such an initiative. The conclusions and main trends extracted from
these discussions were the basis of a wider seminar/consultation
workshop which took place on 29th May in Brussels and was attended
by over 120 participants. It brought together operators, terminal
suppliers, platform & software suppliers, portal providers,
ISPs, content providers, commercial brands and financial institutions.
The proposed initiative for 2001
The objective of this initiative is to offer the mobile sector
actors an opportunity to jointly develop and test, on a Pan-European
scale, a number of innovative 2.5-3G services and applications and
to validate key interoperability issues between different networks
and services platforms.
Issues to be addressed
In the development and testing of such services and applications,
particular attention needs to be given to:
- Interoperability/interworking, roaming issues (in particular
from 2.5G to 3G networks), customisation of services.
- Ironing out billing and payment issues – consistency of
data billing between different networks and between 2G and 2.5G.
- Standards, especially for interoperability related to WAP, MMS,
compression algorithms and coding techniques (MPEG-4, etc.), safety,
security and QoS aspects, location based services.
Potential Applications
Possible applications to be targeted are:
- location based services: services/applications; personal locator,
map download, tourist guides and assistance; on-board ambient
intelligence systems (e.g. integrated information, navigation,
traffic and tracking services); context-sensitive information
services; emergency services (e.g. roadside assistance); location-specific
call routing; location-sensitive billing, local directories; ...
- m-commerce (e.g. micro-payments): M-Commerce/M-Business services/applications:
m-shopping, reservations & ticketing, m-payment and billing
(m-purse, micropayment, credit/debit), m-banking and -brokerage,
on-line auctions, advertising, m-contracting, automated tolling,
fleet and mobile assets management, remote diagnostics and maintenance,
mobile office applications, …
- m-infotainment: M-Learning and cultural aspects: news, weather
forecasts, mobile audio/video streaming, interactive games, betting,
e-books, dictionaries, personalised learning delivery systems,
on-line information resources…
- health: vital constants follow up, prevention, remote assistance
and diagnostic and m-prescriptions…
Characteristics of the new initiative
The main features of the proposed initiative to be launched by
the Commission include the following:
- Support to "Trials" of applications and services.
- Focused, "networked" set of relatively small initiatives
- Bulk of support (by means of co-financed expenses) to develop/trial
/validate new services
- Addresses 2.5G and 3G services and applications
- Quick initiatives, flexible to match market conditions and timings
- Initiatives should aim at pan-European services, to ensure openness
of services (use of open APIs/middleware for seamless network
roaming)
- Involve current developers of internet applications on fixed
lines to work on mobile platforms
- Involve content providers (e.g. publishers, sport associations,
compatibly with IPR issues)
- Users would also be welcome in any proposal (involved either
by the operator or by the service provider)
- Exploit synergies with existing industry initiatives
- Short duration (e.g. 18 months or less)
- Draft Time Planning
- Early September - Call for proposals
- Mid September - Information day
- Early December - Call deadline
- February - Contracts
On a longer term, in 2002:
- A Cross Programme Action in the IST WP2002 is under discussion.
Longer term issues need also to be addressed in Mobile Applications
and services. The aim would be to bring together the various actions
on mobile applications and services and address issues such as
IPv6 applications and, applications of Wireless LANs and their
interconnection to the mobile infrastructure.
Regulatory issues
Several issues concerning regulation of the telecommunications
industry were raised in preliminary consultations. These related
mainly to:
- common site acquisition rules/site sharing (also in relation
to smart antennas/spectrum sharing)
- sharing of network infrastructure
- advertising cross-boundaries
- health/safety issues
- service regulation at pan-European level (e.g. betting, user
identification –age-, privacy for location based services,
banking framework –EU micropayments-, prevention of walled-garden
approach to service provision/interconnection/roaming)
These issues need also to be addressed urgently. Instruments such
as accompanying measures (working groups/fora, studies), clusters
of existing projects can be used to reflect on the regulatory framework.
These are under continuous submission in the IST programme. Although
it will not provide immediate solutions to the current problems
of operators, but it will help shape the regulatory framework in
2 years time frame. The involvement of all actors, in particular
of service providers is key.
The Partner
search tool [IST2001 - 2.5-3G initiative] will enable the different
actors on this initiative to meet and build partnerships (the
"IST2001 - 2.5-3G initiative" choice in the list will
be operational on June 11th).
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