GPRS: A donkey on speed is still a donkey

Consumer GPRS is basically WAP with wings, to start with at least. Some of us enjoyed WAP, particularly those of us who shared our childhood with a ZX Spectrum. There was something reassuring about the clunky user interface and the frequent crashes.

WAP over GPRS is a bit like the Spectrum Plus. The charming rubber keys are gone, the price has increased, but not much else is different.

That's right - a donkey on speed is still a donkey. It just costs more to get it going in the morning.

BT has attempted to spice up the graphics a little with a range of pre-programmed icons. A little train to illustrate the travel services, for example.

It's good to see they've taken at least one leaf out of the Japanese book. Japan's leading mobile network NTT-DoCoMo and its (surprisingly successful) i-mode service has a neat little range of characters programmed into the phone so users don't have to spend money downloading them.

The choice of a train is strangely appropriate. GPRS sounds ominously like GNER or some other privatised train company where half the services are late and the other half cancelled.

Trying to convince the public that GPRS is anything other than the same old phone with another name and another confusing price structure will be next to impossible.

How convenient, then, that BT isn't going to try selling it. The commercial service only has 500 users after the network has been up for a year. The consumer phones cost a bomb, BT will spend next to nothing marketing them and is ordering phones on a "just in time" basis. Could it be that BT doesn't want people to buy them?

It seems like they've given up before they've even started. We hope the people who lent them the money for 3G - the next battlefield - are more impressed than us.