Uhm, mobile (video) phones?
What an ackward idea. Who would want to lug a phone around with oneself and be constantly disturbed by it.
Chinese silicon providers Spreadtrum and Rahotech have announced a new chipset that brings video calling to handsets that straddle the TD-SCDMA/GSM divide. China has only just started deploying its 3G network, based on an internally developed technology called TD-SCDMA, the country having decided against paying royalties to …
Videocalling will remain something not used until the network operators price it right. No one in their right mind is going to pay 60p a minute to videocall. The technology has been priced out of the reach of ordinary people. The exact same thing happened with SMS in the early days, then it was 60p per SMS and no one used the technology. As soon as the 10p a text appeared the public took up the service and the rest is history.
There is a place for videocalling, but it will not become realised until the price is right, i.e. no more than for voice calling. And the network opertors will, once again through their own shortsightedness, lose another valuable tool to maintain or even raise ARPU.