Showing off the phones of tomorrow
Trumpeting services like wireless video calls or satellite navigation, mobile phone companies showcased their latest wares on Monday amid hopes the long-awaited shift to "3G" advanced technologies has finally begun.
A whiff of economic recovery was in the air as tens of thousands of industry professionals flocked to a beach-front conference center in this French Riviera town for the opening of the 3GSM World Congress. Organizers of the four-day show said they had received 35,000 visitor registrations -- almost one-third more than last year.
French mobile operator Orange SA touted its 3G, or "third-generation," networks in a video conference with colleagues hundreds of miles away in the French cities of Lille and Toulouse. The demo featured a prototype of one of the phones Orange plans to bring to market in the next four months in France and Britain.
This "is clearly the year of broadband for our whole industry, and, of course, for the mobile industry," said Orange chairman Thierry Breton, who is also chief executive of its parent company, France Telecom.
But the 3G strategy outlined by Breton also dampened any runaway expectations that the new high-speed data services will go mainstream across Europe anytime soon.
