LONDON (Brand Republic) - Professor Peter Cochrane, former head of technology at BT, has warned that third-generation mobile phones may never exist and that telecom companies could collapse under the financial strain of trying to develop them.
Cochrane, whose comments will be broadcast on the BBC’s Money Programme on Wednesday, said the rush to develop the new high-tech phones was a “serious game of poker”, with some companies gambling everything on the technology.
In the UK, BT, One 2 One, Vodafone and Orange recently paid £22bn to secure a licence to build 3G networks, and more money has to be spent on building the networks and developing the phones.
www.bt.com