Mobile stunners top 10 stormed by Sprint and 3

Analysts have picked their top performers in the mobile space - and turned up some surprise winners across the world of wireless.

While cutting edge 3G content and service providers get the nod in the The World’s Top Ten Wireless Services report from research firm Analysys, the top spot goes to an old-school voice service.

The report names Sprint PCS' voice bundles as the number one wireless service. By September 2004, Sprint was clocking up annual ARPU of some $700 - almost twice what Western European operators were making in the corresponding period.

Alastair Brydon, one of the report's authors, said Sprint was chosen "because we really believe [operators] have got to milk the things they're doing well... In Japan, where they're really doing well with data services, voice is still 80 per cent of revenue."

"There's still a lot of potential to steal minutes from fixed operators... Sprint is showing how you can do it."

Another old-school service making the top 10 was O2 Ireland's SMS service, at number four. The analysts chose O2's text service because the operator "is not making the mistake of giving it away. We're increasingly seeing people giving away huge bundles... [but] what they're doing is keeping prices high and encouraging people to use it with nice market and nice services built around SMS," Brydon said.

Nevertheless, services based on 3G technology also got the thumbs up from the analysts, with original UK third generation operator 3 taking both the second and third places, with its ThreePay tariff and mobile video services respectively.

"With mobile video services [3] were one of the first in there, doing that sort of thing," Brydon said. "They tailored the service within the constraints of the 3G service today."

"3 have achieved a good balance between how much to charge consumers and how much revenue they get from data," he added.

Japanese ringtone provider Xing also made the top 10 for its innovative services - including karaoke downloads and a facility that lets will rip customers' favourite tune from a CD to a ringtone.

The top 10 services were picked for their "potential to help operators make progress", Brydon said - for their market potential, how well the service has been implemented and their suitability for reproduction in the wider market.

The top 10 were:

1.  Bundled voice tariffs, Sprint PCS, USA
2.  ThreePay prepaid tariffs, 3, UK
3.  Mobile TV and video, 3, UK
4.  SMS, O2, Ireland
5.  FOMA 3G service bundle, NTT DoCoMo, Japan
6.  Vodafone live! service bundle, Vodafone, Western Europe
7.  TM3 integrated 2.5G/3G/PWLAN, T-Mobile, Germany
8.  Ringtone downloads, Xing, Japan
9.  Games downloads, IN-FUSIO, worldwide
10.  Genion HomeZone tariff, O2, Germany