Last spring, Hutchison paid $6.7 billion for a license to offer next-generation cellular services in Britain.

Its next-generation services are available to most of the residents of that country's big cities: Vilnius, Klaipeda, and Kaunas.

But the UK remains in danger of falling behind when it comes to next-generation mobile services.

Despite growing subscribership, relatively slack demand for next-generation wireless services and fierce competition among large carriers have meant sluggish growth prospects for many companies.

For all the hoopla over the potential profitability of next-generation services, Vodafone is sticking to cautious predictions.

And the company's encore, an ambitious plan to offer next-generation cellular services throughout Europe, is in doubt.

In total, more than a third of all Japanese cellphone subscribers use next-generation services, one of the highest rates in the world.

This new and elaborate vision for next-generation services provided via the Internet is known as the Internet of Services.

Picking up the slack was to be a range of next-generation digital services that require specially designed handsets.

But before everyone applauds the arrival of these next-generation services, observers have a few warnings.