Retro mobile video shows how far we've come in 23 years, but also how things never change

This weekend, the YouTube algorithm pushed an unusual video into my feed, giving me a two-decade-old look back at when 3G was introduced, and it’s a real eye-opener.

Not just because of how different phones looked and the way they were used, but also because, when you listen hard, many of the same problems, issues, and question marks over 5G and soon, 6G technology still apply today.

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You’re officially old if you remember these 7 phones

Feels like 100 years ago

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By  Stephen Radochia

What is the video about?

Shot on the Isle of Man, not in Silent Hill (really)

Published on the BBC Archive YouTube channel, the video is called “Will 3G mobiles take off?” and it originally aired on television in the UK in 2002.

This was a year ahead of the wider rollout of 3G and centered on the initial tests taking place on the Isle of Man at the time.

It’s somewhat poignant because over the last couple of years, 3G (and 2G) has been phased out as networks switch over to 4G and 5G.

However, in 2002, on the Isle of Man, about 200 people were testing cutting-edge 3G phones.

An unnamed talking head explaining how phones were being used at the time immediately highlights how different things were.

Calls and SMS were the primary growth areas, but both were beginning to decline as the landscape was changing.

Then there’s data revenue, which, at the moment, is almost insignificant compared to [voice and messaging], but it’s the area that will provide the future growth for mobile operators.

3G was all about data, and it’s here where parallels can be drawn between the way 3G was promoted in 2002 and the way 5G was promoted several years ago.

Movies on your phone

Watch them on a tiny screen!

Journalist Paul Mason explains to the ordinary person what benefits a 3G phone will bring:

A 2.5G phone is about as fast as the data connection on your home internet connection, and that means you can do email, internet, and even take photos and send them to people.

The next step is 3G and what you’ll be able to do with that is view full-length feature films on your mobile phone.

Good luck with that on a 128 x 160-pixel resolution screen.

Does marketing like this sound familiar? Of course. One of the prime benefits pushed for 5G was the ability to download those “full length feature films” in a few seconds.

T-Mobile’s 5G splash page still puts this as a selling point today, stating a full 8K movie would arrive in six seconds over a 20Gbps 5G connection.

As they jostled to claw back investment, networks in 2002 were also looking for “the killer application” to encourage people to splash out on 3G.

An interesting turn of phrase, given the Apple iPhone — which popularized apps and that subsequent manufacturers all tried to “kill” — was still five years away from release, and this same conundrum has continued to vex networks during the launch of 4G and 5G.

Games will save the day?

Java to the rescue

The video then visits UK-based mobile game company iFone to talk about what could be that killer application.

iFone licensed the rights for classic arcade titles and brought them to mobile using Java.

What made this section interesting was how the industry was still working out how people would be charged for downloading games.

An iFone representative didn’t expect downloadable games to be a big thing for another few years, and said it wasn’t clear if prices would be set by the amount of data, the brands attached to the game itself, or even the entertainment value provided.

Today, we know that it’s really all three. Big-name games usually have a higher cost. We all pay for the data we use, and in-app payments can dictate how much “entertainment” we get from some games.

Games company iFone was eventually acquired by Glu Mobile, which in turn was acquired by Electronic Arts in 2021.

We’re about to see history repeat itself again

Just with flashier phones

The video closes with the journalist pointing out how the mobile industry was, at the time, struggling to come up with a profitable business model to support the wide rollout of the new 3G technology.

We’ve arguably passed that point with 5G, as the technology is already relatively commonplace despite still lacking a true killer application, and we are now seeing how the industry is working out how to sell 6G.

Samsung has recently said it wants to break away from the previous emphasis on network performance for 6G, and illustrate real-world advantages instead. Hopefully, this will mean we won’t see any more statements about how quickly we can download a film.

The video is an interesting watch, but the various old phones on show are probably a better representation of how mobile has moved on in the last 23 years than anything else.