Look east young man - for the future of mobile communications

While there are operators in some countries simply dreaming of the day they'll be able to profit from advanced mobile services, others elsewhere are blazing ahead. Tony Hallett asks what developments in the Far East can tell us...

A consultancy has named South Korea the most advanced nation for mobile communications (http://www.silicon.com/a55376 ). This won't surprise many people, though they'll be those in Japan and maybe a deluded soul on the Isle of Man that would argue otherwise. But what can the experience of advanced data services in the east teach Western operators, if anything?

The figures for Korea are impressive. Though 3G rollouts are ongoing, advanced services made possible by 2.5G technologies have been sold to around nine million subscribers or, put another way, a quarter of everyone with a mobile. More importantly - against a backdrop of faster data-enabled handsets in Europe using GPRS that aren't often used for data - around 75 per cent of these Koreans regularly use the cutting-edge services on offer.

For all those operators struggling with how to make their billion euro 3G investments pay off, those figures are enviable. (See: 3G survival tactics - what are they? http://www.silicon.com/a55283 .)

Meanwhile, across the water in Japan, bona fide 3G users of NTT DoCoMo's FOMA service number around 160,000, according to people who know that operator well. What's more, the use of data services is established. The growth of i-mode - originally offering low bandwidth compatible, always-on DoCoMo-only content - means many users understand non-voice, mobile services. Now they just want richer content.

Operators in Europe and North America won't, of course, say they envy operators in Korea and Japan. As Bernd Eylert, chairman of the UMTS Forum, told silicon.com this week, uptake in these countries is "encouraging". The argument goes that success anywhere shows success in other countries is possible. And that's what everyone wants to hear when fortunes have been spent on licences as well as ongoing network build out.

But do people use mobile devices the same way everywhere? The affinity between Japanese consumers and high-tech gadgets aside, consider a Tokyo commuter belt where three hours on an over-ground train each day suits pushed and pulled data services. This is especially the case when talking loudly on a crowded carriage just isn't done.

Consider a family in a suburb of Seoul that probably has a broadband home internet connection - as a large number of Koreans do - and is likely to exchange multimedia content with a teenage daughter with the latest handset.

These conditions aren't unique but neither are they common enough in dozens of markets upgrading to 3G for operators to take too much heart.

Alongside 3G survival tactics such as lobbying governments for extended licence terms or redefining what 'next-generation services' ultimately means, getting mobile services right is still likely to be a hard slog. Becoming a copycat or partnering with experts from Korea of Japan won't be enough.