Globe Telecom has just transmitted the very first 3G video stream in the Philippines. It’s a test broadcast that marks our being one step closer to having a 3G environment.

Terrific. But the real problem is this: will the people bite?

We’re still at 2.5G right now, and thus far we haven’t been taking the bait (except perhaps for Howard, who seems to be burning up the GPRS lines). Then again, changes might be in the air.

Away we roam
Take PLDT’s WeRoam package, for instance. In an aggressive marketing move, WeRoam has produced product bundles that include some pretty interesting IBM laptops (the ThinkPad R50e and the X40). Along with this comes unlimited access to Wi-Fi and GPRS/EDGE. Translation: surf via Wi-Fi at your favorite coffee shop, and continue surfing via GPRS while you’re on the road. Theoretically, you can be online 24 hours a day, anywhere you go, so long as there’s a SMART or Airborne signal around.

The killer app that will make GPRS (a.k.a. 2.5G) finally take off (after all these years, and with PLDT crossing their fingers) would still just be good old Internet access. For a fixed fee, that is. Note that the cheapest product bundle being offered by PLDT now is P4,299/month for 18 months, including ThinkPad installment (!). After that, it’s just P2,000/month. PLDT is betting that by giving aggressive installment deals on laptops, the local mobile computing market can grow in the same way that bundled phone packages made the cell phone market explode.

Good luck to PLDT. And good luck to 2.5G.

Which leads us back to 3G.

Mobile TV, anyone?
Without any aggressive GPRS bundling programs in its hands, Globe is probably gambling that people would leapfrog over 2.5G and hitch a ride with 3G instead. After all, the 3G phones are here, and the network is apparently on its way as well. But what killer app will make us embrace 3G?

Nokia for one is gambling that we’ll embrace the viewing of TV shows on our phones. But if so, who will the 3G providers count on for the content? Will they rely on current free-air TV broadcasts? Because if they do, then mobile TV is screwed because there’s nothing good on morning TV these days. But if they somehow manage to tie up with a Direct TV type of satellite system, fitting an entire satellite tuner into a phone, then maybe we have something here.

(Note that Korea has their DMB Mobile TV satellite system, and this may be an option for true-blue Korea-novela addicts.)

The other option is to have prepackaged content that will be made available for downloading, which seems to be Nokia’s preferred direction, given their directive that Mobile TV programs should only be 30 minutes long. For this business model to work, however, the proponents will have to charge per download. Which –ouch!– would be too much of an outlay particularly if you are already paying an arm and a leg for 3G service in the first place. So yeah, it’s back to free TV. Which sucks. Big time.

And then there’s…
There is one possible killer app that may just make 3G an attractive proposition for thousands of Filipinos though. And that’s MMORPGs.

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games has become a nine-digit industry here, and there are people like Howard who just can’t get enough of it.

Imagine this scenario: Nokia’s N-Gage evolves into a true gaming pad with a huge screen and a powerful processor that, wonder of wonders, can connect to a 3G network. Add to that a stunningly killer MMORPG game that is designed primarily to run on this new N-Gage and Whoa! Who cares if you look like an idiot whenever you smack this huge pad onto your ear to answer a call? It’s the ultimate mobile gaming machine! And it could just make 3G worth it!

Beyond games, however, it’s still tough to imagine any other killer app that can make 3G a viable proposition.

In the meantime, however, we have 2.5G. With an IBM ThinkPad to boot. That should tide us over for the meantime.