WCDMA Uptake Slower than Expected

As noted in an earlier post by Om Malik, ABI Research reported that WCDMA services are penetrating markets more slowly than expected.

Lance Wilson at ABI said, "We have refined our appraisal of GSM/GPRS/EDGE versus WCDMA. The uptake of WCDMA is not likely to be as rapid as was once thought. It will show good growth, but there is still a lot of life left in GSM. The rollout of WCDMA will continue, but service providers are also upgrading their GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks, so it will take a little longer for WCDMA to become the ubiquitous standard in the GSM family of technologies."

"It's been difficult to gauge the uptake of WCDMA because there are so many factors affecting it. The services being offered to the customer have not quite caught up with the technology," he added.