Video telephony, the service believed to be the key differentiator for 3G seems to have a lot of problems on the Asian market.

Speaking at the 3GSM World Congress Asia in Singapore at the end of September, Jan Nilsson, president of Taiwan cellco Far EasTone, said he "was not convinced" that mobile video telephony would become a strong revenue generator. "To have two types of phone and set up a video call is still very difficult," he points out. "We are testing and testing and testing these handsets and getting more and more desperate the more we are testing."

Figures from Japan, however, indicate FET’s endless testing could be fruitless. Gerhard Fasol, president and CEO of Eurotechnology Japan, told 3G Mobile that he estimates mobile video telephony usage accounts for less than a half-percent of revenues. "It is not a big service for NTT DoCoMo and is more or less irrelevant for 3G," he said.

Via 3G Mobile, Volume 6, Number 19, October 3, 2004, p. 4