SEX SELLS: How Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile promotes picture-taking telephones
If the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem, maybe there's hope yet for Europe's telecom industry. Last week the Spanish phone company Telefónica and its Finnish counterpart Sonera suspended their Group 3G joint venture, each writing off more than €4 billion on their investment in new "third-generation" mobile networks for Germany and elsewhere. Like nearly all the big European operators, they paid a lot for 3G because they expected a lot: tapping into higher bandwidth, 3G mobiles were supposed to offer everything from high-speed Internet access to streaming video, allowing telecoms to keep revenues flowing even...
