Nokia Starts Shipping First 3G Phone
Nokia announced today that they’re finally shipping 3G ready phones. My first thought had been that this was a bit late, but since so many 3G services have struggled, it might not be that big of a deal. A bigger issue, actually, might be whether or not this move can help jumpstart 3G offerings. As we pointed out recently, many mobile phone subscribers don’t pay as much attention to the brand of the service they subscribe to. They pay much more attention to the brand of the phone. Thus, they go into a store and say “I want a Nokia phone” and are limited to the services that support Nokia phones. So, if Nokia is offering 3G ready phones, maybe some of those service-agnostic buyers will end up signing up for 3G service.
