Ericsson chief woos US users at Comdex

By the end of 2003 more people will use mobile devices to access the internet than traditional fixed line methods, according to the president of mobile phone giant Ericsson.

Kurt Hellstrom, who is one of only two non-US vendor chiefs to ever give a keynote speech at Comdex US, said yesterday that operators around the world sign up a total of 700,000 new subscribers every day and that four in 10 of those will be connected using Ericsson kit.

Comdex organisers said getting Hellstrom in front of mainly US IT professionals indicates the importance of wireless technology and is an acknowledgement that the US is behind Europe and Japan in mobile phone use.

Pagers are still popular in the US, but Hellstrom explained that European citizens are heavy users of the more interactive short message system (SMS) service.

He said some 10 billion SMS messages are beamed across mobile networks each month and that 50 billion messages will be sent around the world by the end of the year.

"There are close to 600 million mobile phone users around the world and soon more people will use their mobile phones to access the internet than fixed lines. Mobile phones are the world's best-selling electronic device," he said.

Hellstrom believes the ability to access the internet using mobile devices will help drive more sales of mobile phones and that the main challenge facing mobile operators is building network capacity.

The third-generation (3G) networks, which will offer data rates of between 384Kbps and 2Mbps, will help bring "broadband to the pocket", he said.

By the end of next year 90 operators will have licences to operate 3G networks and the first operational network will be up and running in Japan, followed by Europe and later the rest of the world, said Hellstrom.

However, Ericsson has already begun researching fourth-generation (4G) mobile networks and the company expects the first 4G network will be implemented in 2010.

Hellstrom also demonstrated Ericsson's R380, which the company claims is the first handset to combine Wap-based wireless web access with the features of a mobile phone and personal digital assistant.

The Symbian-based phone offers international roaming in more than 120 countries on five continents and is compatible with applications such as Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes.

Users can interact with the system using either a stylus or an on-screen keyboard to access information such as a calendar, addresses, notepad and email.