Four years ago the GSM Association held a conference at New Delhi, India where the 3G For All initiative was launched. The GSM Associations 3G For All program was envisioned to bring 3G multimedia services and mobile Internet access to a mass-market user base around the world, and the LG KU250 handset was selected as the winning device. The group planned to launch more low cost 3G devices, but eventually the initiative became necessary as manufacturers on their own launched lower and lower cost 3G devices.
Today, it is about smartphones. The feature phone will slowly fade out of existence, save maybe for the most basic handsets, and there is a need to bring smartphones to the mass market. Low cost handset manufacturers from China, with the free license Android operating system from Google, are making this a reality.
Today, we got two Huawei U8150 IDEOS handsets on Smart Communications postpaid Plan 500 offering. Globe Telecom and Sun Cellular offer the same phones on similar plans.
The phone is decently built, and while Android on a 2.8-inch 240 x 320 screen is not ideal, it is a much better choice than any other smartphone at a Php6,000-7,000 budget. It has WiFi, a high speed data connection, can run a large number of Android apps, and can even play Angry Birds (though Rio gets a bit choppy).
This kind of humble device, will bring smartphones to the masses and will probably make Android the dominant operating system in the planet.
I remember when Globe Visibility first came out offering high speed internet. The service promised and delivered 1.4Mbps for Php2,000 per month. Network congestion soon changed that. I think Globe Telecom was expecting people to use it on laptops, and not plugged to desktops 24/7. Some people even used them as internet connections for Internet Cafe's. High-speed broadband was in its infancy, so these were just growing pains.
