3G rollouts: Better late than billions and never?

JT's announcement won't be the last 3G bad news story because products and services in this industry are invariably late. Delays, like it or not, are the norm.

Just ask Microsoft, who, once upon a time - 1994 to be exact - planned to introduce an operating system, hastily rescheduled again and again, conveniently changed the name, and still failed to get Windows 95 out until over half that particular year had gone by.

It didn't hurt Microsoft or Windows 95, so why should delays in next generation mobile technology hurt the telecoms sector? After all, mobile sales remain healthy (if not up to the stratospheric figures of 2000) and if we're talking about Japan, consider the success NTT, JT's main rival, has had with i-Mode - 20 million subscribers and climbing at a rate of 37,000 a day.

Unfortunately, these delays matter a great deal for those who have gambled big on the future of 3G. Every day network rollouts get put back is another day interest has to be paid on billion dollar debts. Continue to lose money in this fashion, fail to keep promises in other words, and the institutions happy to fork out in 2000 will turn their back on you in 2001.

Last year's optimism, that saw £22bn spent on UK licences alone, has already given way to harsh realism. Licence winners in Germany, for example, are thinking the unthinkable and teaming up to share infrastructure costs. Cooperation with deadly rivals is preferable to the alternative, no network.

And if you want further proof that the telecoms industry is facing up to the realities of last year's spending spree, consider France Telecom's market activities today: the company sincerely hopes a $16bn corporate bond deal will go some way to off-setting its 3G debts.

So while 'better late than never' may work for others in the IT and telecoms industry, for those who have bet their futures on 3G, if it gets any later, never might become a real possibility.