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A Hutchison Telecommunications executive has warned that the initial deployment of GPRS (general packet radio service) networks this year might prove disappointing as mobile operators struggle to iron out the kinks.

The upgraded networks would have stability problems and initial data speeds would be about 20 kilobits per second, much slower than the promised 100 kbps, due to bandwidth limitation in the first batch of devices, said Sandroff Ma, head of system integration at Hutchison Telecom.

'GPRS will take some time to get sufficient network stability,' Mr Ma said.

He said that in the short term, CDMA (code division multiple access) was a better standard in terms of bandwidth, network resources and device support.

In August, Hutchison Telecom launched its CDMA IS95B network in Hong Kong. Subscribers can send and receive data wirelessly from handheld computers at data speeds of up to 64 kbps.

Hutchison also operates CDMA networks in South Korea and Japan, and will roll out CDMA networks in mainland China, Thailand and Australia early next year.

Mr Ma said Hutchison Telecom's GPRS network would be launched at the end of the year when handsets became available.

'Like the other mobile operators in Hong Kong, we are waiting for GPRS mobile phones to ship here, which should be quite soon,' he said.

He said that the first batch of GPRS handsets would only allow bandwidth of up to 20 kbps and warned that problems with network resources would arise.

These problems could not be resolved before the second quarter of next year, Mr Ma said.

Hutchison Telecom is one of two operators in Hong Kong that provide high-speed mobile data services. CSL launched GPRS network and services in November.

Hutchison's wireless data service is called Orange Web Direct and subscribers are charged HK$228 a month for the service, which gives them up to five megabytes of free usage. They are charged one to two HK cents for every kilobyte thereafter. Orange charges HK$1 per e-mail and SMS sent.

Hutchison charges HK$2,880 for the QuickWing CDMA sled for the Palm V series and HK$2,380 for the FreeWing modem card that fits in the PC card slot in laptops and Compaq Computer's iPaq handheld.

The mobile operator is also selling three Samsung Wap phones, all CDMA-based, which allow subscribers to use mobile data services.

'There is really no better time than now for corporations to deploy mobile data,' Mr Ma said.

He said that corporations in competitive industries could not wait for 3G, which was at least three to four years away from deployment in Hong Kong.

'Unless you need 384 kbps bandwidth to the individual device and you are willing to pay for the cost of that, then wait for 3G,' Mr Ma said.



GPRS likely to have teething problems