Leader: Spare us the surprise 3G launches

It has been a slightly bizarre week of 3G launches. After a long weekend for some, many in the media, analyst houses and indeed the industry generally returned to work to be greeted by news that Vodafone is launching 3G phone services - as opposed to its already-launched data card offering - in Germany and Portugal.

Where did that come from? Out of the blue, was the common answer.

It didn't take long to work out that Big Red, as it increasingly likes to be known (seemingly happy to ape a chewing gum brand more so than IBM's nickname), was trying to trump an imminent T-Mobile launch. That German operator had been about to announce the Nokia 7600 - the same snazzy handset 3 is now, almost begrudgingly, offering - when Vodafone thought it time to step up to the plate.

Which brings us to 3. After seeing what was going on, it seems this pioneer of UMTS in Europe decided to throw a party to tell the good people of the media how well its business is going. It also announced it is "broadening" its handset range (not the widest handset range in the world, it must be said) with the addition of the rather cool but uncoolly named LG U8110. Maybe that part of this week's news wasn't such a rushed announcement.

So - deep breath - what seems to be going on here is a big dose of one-upmanship in the world of cutting edge mobile communications.

It wasn't that long ago that Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin was telling us the company was on for a mass 3G launch of autumn this year. In the words of one analyst, they would "at the very least, make the Christmas [buying] season". Now we are faced with 'Vodafone live! with 3G' - as an aside, could they have not stuck to the concept behind the jargon-free 'live!' and just provided faster services and more of them?

By and large everyone would have settled for a Q3 launch. Everyone knows trials by the major operators - and 3's learning curve - have been going on for some time. Our main concern now is that the services serve a purpose and are robust - as with users' early experience of Vodafone's Mobile Connect 3G data card.

For Vodafone and its many competitors, now is the time for reliable rollouts, not ultimately worthless firsts.