Surveying the mobile landscape: T-Mobile

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	Home / Cell phones / Consumer messaging phones

	Surveying the mobile landscape: T-Mobile	By Philip Berne, 29 December 2007

The last carrier without a 3G network, hopefully T-Mobile will turn on the juice in the next year. We look at what a 3G network could mean for the smallest American carrier.

Think of all the interesting phone’s on T-Mobile’s lineup. The Sidekick LX, at the top of the Sidekick family tree. The T-Mobile Shadow, with it’s Neo interface that makes Windows Mobile 6 just a bit easier. The T-Mobile Wing and T-Mobile Dash, more innovative, slick smartphones from HTC. The BlackBerry Pearl was on T-Mobile first, and T-Mobile is still the only carrier offering UMA network switching. T-Mobile has a huge lineup of music phones, including some Nokia and Samsung exclusives, as well as every flavor of RAZR, KRZR, RIZR and RAZR2 you might want.

Now, imagine every phone mentioned above with 3G networking. Phones with fast, useful internet browsing. Phones with real multimedia services, like a music store and streaming audio. Maybe even mobile television. Phone’s with fast-loading GPS maps, tethered modem support, and all the perks that a real 3G network offers. Every phone above could have been better with 3G, and that’s the change we’d like to see from T-Mobile this year. We’re already seeing phones with 1700-band 3G support on T-Mobile’s network. Now it’s time to light up the network itself.

Don’t cover it, discover it!

But T-Mobile should learn from the other carriers how not to promote a 3G network. The larger carriers blend their 3G network and services so seamlessly into their traditional packages that many customers may not realize the capabilities of their phone, or why they are paying more for it. T-Mobile should follow Helio’s lead and make the 3G network something special. Not just a tack-on to the WAP browser the phones were already running, but a packaged, useful set of 3G media tools. Tools for social networking, messaging, location-based services. Take a leap ahead of the larger competitors, who have been slowly rolling out services that are half-disappointing anyway. Don’t bother with a video clips service, unless its unique, original content that people were already watching in short form. No cut-up Sopranos episodes, in other words.

Fix the glitch

Then, go back and improve the key devices. It won’t be enough to simply flick a switch and activate 3G on the existing Sidekick LX. Though that device was an improvement over previous generations, slow networking alone didn’t keep it from comparing poorly against today’s best multimedia phones. The iPhone, after all, only does EDGE. So T-Mobile needs to take some its best, most unique devices, back to the drawing board for the 3G rollout. For the Sidekick, think of the difference between the LG enV and the LG Voyager, a significant upgrade.

Teaching the class of 2008

Beyond the phones, though, T-Mobile needs to promote themselves as a blanket of high-speed service. The interaction between the new 3G network as well as the wide array of existing T-Mobile HotSpots should create a seamless network experience, helped along by a (hopefully) polished UMA network experience. Every major 3G phone should also be a UMA phone, with the HotSpot @Home plan built into the calling package. Then, T-Mobile just needs some fine marketing muscle to get the message out. A whole lot will be going on at T-Mobile in the next year, so much that the hardest part may simply be explaining the changes.