Three launches mobile broadband

17-11-2006

by Emmet Ryan

Three Ireland claims to be poised to inject new competition into the Irish market with the launch of a mobile broadband product.

The Hutchison Whampoa-owned mobile operator revealed its new X-Series of mobile phones in London on Thursday, and announced it will charge a flat monthly fee for broadband access that will cover web services such as e-mail, internet messaging and internet phone calls.

"With Three you will now have mobile broadband at three times the speed of what is available at home," said Robert Finnegan, managing director of Three Ireland. "The service is free once the user has paid a flat monthly fee."

Finnegan said this method of pricing was the future for mobile internet but that those mobile operators whose bills are calculated on the amount of data downloaded would have difficulty adapting their pricing models to charge the same way: "Given the profitability they have at the moment it will be very difficult for them to switch to a flat fee without reducing the profitability of their service," he said.

Finnegan told ENN the availability of the internet on mobile phones was becoming more important to Irish users. "Life today is all about mobility. We are taking the shackles off making it easier for users to access the internet on their phones," he said.

The X-Series handsets will allow users to make internet phone calls from their mobile using Skype as well as free messaging services through Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger. Nokia and Sony-Ericsson phones will be the first to carry the X-Series services which will be available from December.

"By partnering with the leaders of the internet and leading handset makers, the X-Series will give everyone access to more of what they want, when they want it," said Canning Fok, group managing director of Three's parent company Hutchison Whampoa.

Three launched in Ireland in 2005 and introduced a pre-pay service in May of this year. "I am very pleased with the progress we have made so far," said Finnegan. "We had the fastest roll out of any 3G network in Europe."

He told ENN that Three Ireland is currently upgrading the network and that the company will announce customers figures for the first time early next year after Hutchison Whampoa announces its results in February or March.