3gForAll
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LG's "3G for all" KU250 on sale this month
What you're looking at here, LG's KU250, might be the first 3G phone some folks in developing nations ever see. Chosen to lead off the GSM Association's "3G for all" campaign to bring high-speed data outside its typical industrialized comfort zone, the 15mm candybar goes on sale this month in parts of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East on a variety of carriers. Pricing will likely vary from market to market, but the goal is to keep it cheap -- pretty impressive considering the phone's video calling capability, media player with support for AAC+ and WMA, microSD expansion, and 1.3 megapixel cam.
LG handset chosen to lead GSM Association's "3G for All" campaign
Is the world ready for "3G for All?" LG Electronics thinks it is, as the world's fourth largest handset maker (having been just recently surpassed by Flickr-lover Sony Ericsson) scored a major coup at 3GSM last week when it was announced that one of LG's handsets will lead the GSM Association's "3G for All" campaign to make sure everyone and anyone knows that 3G is alive and well and that they should subscribe. Now. Anyway, the LG model KU250 will end up being sold for about 30% less wholesale than the typical entry-level 3G phone. The meat from LG here is that this handset, even at the lower entry price, will be very competitive with the multimedia second-generation handsets selling now. The KU250's dimensions at 15mm thick will have support from 12 global wireless carriers at the outset and was chosen from 19 handsets submitted by eight vendors. For pure GSM fans, it may be a little of a mixed bag, as the GSM Association chose a handset with a chipset supplied by Qualcomm. Hey, we're all part of the WCDMA burgeoning family, right?
GSMA wants 3G for developing countries
Sure, the OLPC project's connectivity options are all well and good with the promise of WiFi and mesh networking, but how's about tethering that $100 $130 laptop up to some high-speed WWAN action? The GSM Association has announced its "3G for all" initiative to bring UMTS access well beyond its current user base of 72 million people, most of whom reside in industrialized nations. Although OLPC is not specifically mentioned, the synergy is pretty obvious -- we suspect these laptops could find themselves in a few places where WiFi is hard to come by. Besides challenging carriers to build out the network, GSMA is asking manufacturers to develop 3G handsets with the needs of emerging markets in mind, something they've done in the past for 2G handsets with the goal of mass production at the $30 price point. UMTS has a long way to go in some industrialized nations before we see this all happening, but dare to dream, guys -- we're all about $130 laptops tethered to $30 3G-capable phones.
