'web'n'walk' means no walled garden

[3GScottishUser]

LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) - T-Mobile UK, the British arm of Europe's second-largest cell phone operator, said on Wednesday it expected to woo hundreds of thousands of customers onto its new mobile Internet devices over the next couple of years.

Managing Director Brian McBride said he was confident that the launch in Britain of T-Mobile's "web'n'walk" consumer Internet brand on eight devices by Christmas would bring the full power of the Internet from computers onto mobile phones.

He conceded that Internet services on mobile devices to date had proved slow, difficult to navigate and expensive. But he said T-Mobile's approach was for fast, simple and affordable services and products that would one day carry more Internet traffic than fixed-line computers or phones.

"We're all about the full Internet, not quasi Internet...not a walled garden. We kick off with (search engine) Google on your front page, click one button and you're away," he told a conference call with journalists.

Most mobile Internet devices target professionals using email and surfing the Web and are designed to synchronise with corporate e-mail accounts.

But Deutsche Telekom-controlled T-Mobile (DTEGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) has been one of the few to also focus on non-professionals with widescreen products with integrated cameras that make Web browsing and instant messaging easy and fast by beefing up browsers and software.

Backed by a marketing and advertising campaign running into high, single-digit millions of pounds, the company is selling three tariff bands priced at 30-55 pounds ($53-$97) per month for customers who are willing to sign up for 18-month contracts.

The deals include 100, 200 or 400 inclusive call minutes and each provide 40 megabits of data usage -- equivalent to about 2,500 average emails or 500 average Web pages. Calls outside inclusive minutes are charged at between 10p-25p per minute.

T-Mobile has been integrating its second-generation, new higher-speed third-generation (3G) and local wirefree (WiFi) area networks to allow its handsets to offer high-speed, broadband mobile data services.

Its Web service will be available in the UK on products such as its "MDA" devices, some of which are 2.5G, 3G and WiFi compliant and are made by Taiwan's HTC, the new Nokia (NOK1V.HE: Quote, Profile, Research) N70 and N6630 handsets and its Sidekick II, with enhanced email, messaging and calendar capabilities.

"I think it's realistic to expect over the next couple of years that we're going to get hundreds of thousands of people on this," McBride said.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/investing...MS-TMOBILE.XML

[Hands0n]

...........each provide 40 megabits of data usage ................

Is that right or a typo?

Very nice to see the bundling of data (if it is 40MBytes) with a reasonable number of voice minutes. I'd like to see the other mobile ops go down this route and not treat data as a bolt-on luxury with correspondingly ridiculous charges. Mobile data will not ever become mainstream unless and until the mobile ops liberalise the tariffs [a lot!]. Mobile data is no longer the domain of the nerds and corporations ...... The sooner that is recognised by the Mobops the better.

The crying shame is that the Mobop with the most opportunity to capitalise on making affordable mobile data available has done the least to date, and is likely to be overtaken in its sullen efforts by the competition.

I'm convinced that the Mobops have misread the market for mobile data, thinking it for only Internet use, and are missing out on early opportunities to establish firm footings and relationships with businesses that would promote the use of such data wider afield than can be imagined at the moment.

I'm sure this is an aberration that will be confined to the dustbin of history within the next 24 months at the most.

[3GScottishUser]

Full details are in the T-Mobile section of this price list: http://www.hughsymons.com/documents/..._5pric_oct.pdf

[Hands0n]

Web’n’walk 100 18 months £30 £15 100 voice minutes and £1 per Mb
for 6 mnths 40Mb of Internet browsing
Web’n’walk 200 18 months £38 £19 100 voice minutes and £1 per Mb
for 6 mnths 40Mb of Internet browsing
Web‘n’ walk 400 18 months £55 £27.50 400 voice minutes and £1 per Mb
for 6 mnths 40Mb of Internet browsing

Well, it certainly looks like it is Megabits (small 'b') rather than Megabytes that are on offer. So, 40Megabits is 5Megabytes in old money (if we accept 8 bit bytes), but in transmission terms the usable data becomes much less allowing for TCP/IP protocol overheads and anything else that gets chucked in there.

It is, however, a step in the right direction. More please. Much more.

[Ben]

It has to be a typo. It has to be! Otherwise it's £8 per megabyte, the most expensive in the UK market!

Fingers crossed that it's a balls up... otherwise we're going very very in the wrong direction IMHO!

[Hands0n]

I dunno Ben. I just saw 3GSU's posting on O2's latest tariff offering and that [too] is promoting 100Kb (small 'b' again) which is 12,500 Bytes.

I looked around the Hugh Symmonds document and they're all at it. The data bundles are being quoted in Bits not Bytes! Very disinegnious if you ask me

[3GScottishUser]

I just checked and this is what 02 are saying about Data Bolt-On's

"Browse & Download Bolt Ons

Whether you're a regular email user, a sports fanatic, music enthusiast, gaming guru or just want the latest news and entertainment, we'll help you start surfing the Internet on the go with our new Browse & Download Bolt Ons. These Bolt Ons give you a fixed amount of data to use for browsing pages such as online newspapers or downloading stuff such as the latest ringtones or movie clips on either O2 Active or i-mode®.

There are two to choose from: Browse & Download 2MB gives you 2MB of data for £3 or Browse & Download 4MB gives you 4MB of data for £5."


So it definately Bytes when you buy a bolt-on, not bad prices either!!