World Online launches cellular, eyes GPRS

By Phillip de Wet for Tiscali

Johannesburg, 23 May 2002

World Online announced its cellular service operation at Computer Faire 2002 this week. The Internet service provider (ISP) plans to start selling Vodacom airtime contracts bundled with cellphones as well as personal digital assistants (PDAs).

World Online became a Vodacom service provider when Vodacom sold its 40% stake in the company to majority stakeholder Tiscali, a European Internet and telecommunications operator, in January.

World Online, the second biggest dial-up ISP in the country, will offer its current subscribers a 5% discount on cellphone accounts. However, it sees its biggest opportunity in providing new services using mobile data provision.

One such service is a remote synchronisation system now available. It allows PDA users to access e-mail and other data remotely. In its current incarnation, a Bluetooth connection is used to link the PDA to a cellphone, which makes a data call to a dedicated host connected to a Microsoft Exchange. The service is priced at R300 per user.

World Online MD Graeme Victor says the service is aimed at mobile executives with assistants who handle their schedules. With such a limited market, he expects to sign up no more than 2 000 customers for it in the next three months.

"It will be slow initially, similar to WAP [Wireless Application Protocol]," he says. "You will have some early adopters with slow but steady growth after that."

However, he believes the service is liable to see 2 000 or more users a month sign up once general packet radio service (GPRS) becomes available.

"This is a pre-runner to GPRS. GSM is expensive, but if GPRS is cheap enough, and as the rest of the technology becomes cheaper, you will have a lot more adoption."

GPRS is an always-on technology which straddles the current first generation mobile data technology and the much-hyped 3G (third generation) technology being developed. Both MTN and Vodacom have active base stations in the Sandton area supporting the technology, and are expected to launch it commercially within the next three months.