It’s been here for a month now, but has 3G, the slick new mobile telecommunications technology that lets your mobile phone dance and sing a whole new repertoire of tricks, been living up to the hype? Live streaming video and TV, music downloads, video calling, internet browsing — all this and more is possible —if you’re willing to shell out the cash for a 3G-enabled phone and the network costs associated with it.

For those who didn’t catch our intro to the topic last month (“The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, page 102), 3G is shorthand for the ‘third generation’ of mobile phone technology. The third generation (3G) mobile standard is, put simply, a bigger, faster, wider ‘pipe’ for all that digital data to travel through. For the end consumer (you), this means much more information can be delivered to your (3G capable) phone, faster than ever before.

Mobinil, Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat were kind enough to each loan Egypt Today a phone and line that could demonstrate the best of their respective data services. In the case of Mobinil, which has yet to acquire a 3G service (its CEO told et sister publication Business Today Egypt that they “will get 3G at some point in time,” and that they felt “the numbers wouldn’t bear out the cost of acquiring the license at this point.”), we were trying out their advanced 2.5G-based services, which use the GPRS capability available on many current mobiles.

For both Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat, we were making use of brand new, top-of-the-line handsets that have specific features designed to make the most out of 3G services.

In short, all three services impressed us, although in many cases, it was impressive in more of a “Wow, look what my phone can do” kind of way — the immediate, buzzy excitement of seeing something you’ve never seen before. The long term value of many of these services, on the other hand, is questionable. Will we really still be excited about downloading 45-second video clips of football players clanging their heads on goal posts in 2010? Given human nature, that is, sadly, a ‘wait and see’ type question.

We’ve put together a review of each company’s offerings — but first, our general impressions of some of the most talked-about new services.

It is understandable that video calling is often seen as the star attraction of 3G services. Like hover boards, jet-packs and charming, murderous robots, personal video communicators have been symbols of our techno-utopian future for a long time. And now we can all have one! Kind of.

In reality, it isn’t surprising that video calling has failed to become a mainstream feature in the markets across the world that have had 3G for many years. The feature is fun, in a kind of gimmicky way, and it is certainly appealing in many cases to be able to see the person you are talking to. But it has a number of problems that mean it will likely be little more than a minor trick in your arsenal of cool phone toys.

First, the quality of the video image is best when both parties are sitting still, in a well lit room. Once you, or the camera, start moving around, images pixellate and blur, sound quality goes down the drain, and the video call starts to look more like two masked men fighting in the middle of a rainy, snowy sandstorm. This basically means don’t bother with a video call when you are walking around, and don’t try and video call your friend to show them the crazy cabbie versus microbus driver street fight happening in front of you.

Secondly, because you need to hold the phone an arm’s length away from you for the video camera to be able to see you, the phone turns to speakerphone mode — basically turning up the volume full-blast. And the microphone, which needs to hear your voice, has to pick up the sound from a much further distance than it is used to with regular calls, meaning that the sound quality takes a dive.

In short, you are hearing a low-quality sound feed from your friend, being played in low-quality speakerphone mode. Again, this makes video calling pretty much useless if you are in a loud environment. That’s just about anywhere in Cairo except for sealed, soundproof rooms. This challenge, like many others we encountered with 3G phones, is largely solved by getting yourself a good external headphone/microphone combo.

This is sounding a little harsh, and rightly so, but there is an upside. When we video called people from our desks at the et offices, or from our living rooms at home, we got good connections and chatted away. Video calling was fun. It’s just plain cool to be able to see your friend and talk with them face to face, and it is a capability that will only get better as the technology improves, and especially as the networks, both in Egypt and internationally, become interoperable. It would be fantastic to be able to call family or friends in other countries and see their faces — right now, you can’t even call someone on the other network in Egypt, a development reminiscent of the days when Mobinil users couldn’t send an SMS to a Click subscriber and vice versa.

All in all, video calling is a cute, fun little add-on — not enough to have you throwing away your old phone in disgust, but certainly something to keep your eye on.

You wake up in the morning, then flick on the TV to catch the morning news while having a coffee and getting ready to go to work. You commute to work, say 45 minutes, then get to work, switch on the computer, and promptly spent the next 8-12 hours staring at a glowing screen. You finish work, commute home, switch on the TV, fire up the laptop, and spend the next 6 hours intermittently watching TV and surfing the internet. Is there any way to cram any more time staring at little glowing screens?

Thankfully, the answer is yes. Thanks to new mobile technology, those 45-minute commutes can also be 45 minutes of solid TV watching.

All three networks offer live TV on your phone, and the quality is surprisingly good. Mobinil’s service, which is somehow squeezing live streaming video and sound down the old second-generation pipes, still flowed smoothly and had clear sound — although obviously the quality of both the image and the sound was not as sharp as the stuff delivered over 3G networks.

Video downloads, available on all networks, were usually more gimmicky. Typically consisting of short, wasting-time-on-the-internet style clips of cats attacking dogs or sports highlights, these things were fun — for about 3 minutes. I can see the teen crowd loving this kind of stuff, though — and spending an ungodly amount of their parents’ money on it to boot.

Here is the real sleeping success story of the 3G service. Most major websites, including Google, Yahoo and MSN, have “mobile” versions of their sites, specially optimized for download and viewing on mobile phones. In our experience, these sites were quick to load and well designed for the limitations of mobile phone viewing. Being able to quickly check and send email — or read the latest news — while on the move is pretty useful, and it will most likely be the occasionally life-saving feature that people will one day wonder how we ever lived without.

All the web browsing we did was with Nokia’s built in browser, which was far from optimal. Although Nokia has an excellent track record of making great phones and phone operating systems, web browsers are not its strong card. For a better mobile web browser, try out Opera Mobile, the mobile version of the well-regarded Opera web browser. Opera has spent recent years focusing on scaled down ‘mini’ browsers for many different uses, and their mobile web browser has been well received in the tech community. It works on ‘smart’ phones running the Windows Mobile operating system (where the native Internet Explorer browser isn’t bad), as well as phones using the Symbian S60 operating system (used by companies such as Nokia, Samsung and Panasonic).

Video Calling: Not available on Mobinil’s current 2G-based network.

Live TV and Video: The live TV was of an impressive quality, given that it was coming down over the old 2G network — but still not up to the standards of the 3G services. Still, everything worked, all over Cairo, which is more than can be said for the other two networks. Channels available included Mazzika, Mazzika Zoom, Al-Arabiya, Mehwar, Dream 1, Dream 2 and OTV.

Music Downloads: A fairly extensive collection of modern and classical Egyptian and Arabic music —mainly in the form of short (30-45 second) clips. Downloaded quickly, good sound quality.

Mobile Web: We couldn’t get mobile web browsing to work satisfactorily, but the Mobinil Life service did offer news feeds from BBC, CNN and Al-Jazeera, and the company also supports “push” email (made famous by the ubiquitous Blackberry).

Connection Quality: Great. Everything (apart from browsing websites) worked well, everywhere, all the time.

Pricing: Mobinil has a simple pricing system: LE 5 for each download (for things like music, video clips, wallpapers and ringtones) and LE 15 per megabyte for downloads when browsing (such as news, sports updates and live TV).

Video Calling: Vodafone’s video calling worked simply and well, and aside from the general video calling shortcomings listed previously, there were no real network-specific problems. Calls would occasionally ‘freeze,’ and it is unclear if this is just a teething problem for the new network, or a general 3G issue.

Live TV and Video: The live TV stations streamed fast, sharp and clear, with great quality audio and video. There were, however, occasional disruptions, and some occasions when the services were not available at all. When it’s working, it’s great. Channels available include “basic” channels such as Melody, Rotana and Dream TV, and premium ART channels, including ART Sport and ART Cinema

Music Downloads: Vodafone has an enormous collection of Arabic and Western music. The collection was deep — when looking in the ‘hip-hop’ genre, we found gourmet acts such as Common and Dilated Peoples. If this top-notch selection is found across all genres, then this is a serious music library to choose from. The Vodafone website claims over 500,000 songs available.

Mobile Web: Like the TV, beautiful when it works. Fast, easy to use and reliable, once the connection is established.

Connection Quality: Vodafone’s services were generally the best, but the 3G component of the network is still being rolled out, so there were areas in which we just couldn’t access certain services. When we could access them, they were easily the best of the three.

Pricing: LE 4.5 for a music download, LE .75 per minute for video calls, LE .50 per minute for live TV (basic channels) and LE 15 per month for 5 hours of ART channels.

Video Calling: Worked well, with good quality image and sound. As Etisalat’s network is still being rolled out, there were plenty of occasions where 3G reception — and thus, video calling — was not available. Vodafone and Etisalat video calling services do not yet “talk”, meaning you can only video call people on your own network.

Live TV and Video: For foreigners with the desire to watch TV on your phone, Etisalat was the only network with English language programming, with Al-Jazeera International. Etisalat’s TV service was of a very high quality — when in network range. Channels available include Dream 1 and 2, Melody, Al-Jazeera (Arabic and English), Mehwar, Melody Hits, Zoom TV, Melody Arabia and Mazzika

Music Downloads: Plenty of music available for download, in multiple formats including ringtones, short clips and full tracks. Strangely, the only Western music we could find was of the “classic” 1950s and 1960s variety — think “shooby doo wop” style. The music downloaded quick and easy, and the quality was good.

Mobile Web: When it worked, it worked well.

Connection Quality: Like Vodafone, Etisalat does not have consistent 3G coverage across Cairo — although its 2G voice and SMS service was, presumably thanks to sharing agreements with the other networks, consistent. We couldn’t get 3G service in the Egypt Today offices in Degla, Maadi — which we imagined would be a priority demographic area for Etisalat.

Pricing: LE 4 for most music downloads, LE .75 per minute for video calling, LE 1 per minute for mobile TV. et