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3UK launches Android HTC Hero complete with Spotify Mobile

Monday, October 19th, 2009

This November (not long now), 3UK are launching their first Android device.

It’s the rather stunning HTC Hero.

And it’s coming with Spotify Mobile pre-installed.

The deal?

£35/month over 1824 months and an up-front fee of £99. That gets you 24 months of unlimited Spotify Premium (for your mobile, and your PC — a £240 saving), plus 750 minutes, unlimited texts, unlimited 3-to-3 calls, unlimited data and free Skype-to-Skype calls.

That is a flippin’ wicked deal. A really, really good deal. Especially if, like me, you’re *already* paying £9.99 a month for Spotify. Compelling, relevant and very fair. This is the kind of deal that is likely to get a lot of people wondering why they’re sticking with their existing operator.

The handset itself is simply magnificent.

In case you need a reminder, here are some of the key specs:

5 Mega Pixel touch screen handset
3.2” TFT LCD capacitive touch screen, 320 x480
HSDPA, AGPS, 3.5mm connection
512 MB Internal memory, supports up to 8GB SD Card
Slim tablet 112 x 56.2x 14.35mm, 135g
Stereo Bluetooth
Android OS

Spotify Mobile is restricted, initially, to the HTC Hero — you won’t be able to buy it for any other 3 handset at the moment.

Keep your eyes on www.three.co.uk for more details.

And here’s a tempting reminder of the HTC Hero:

Posted in Devices, Three, android | Comments

3’s mobile wifi (“MiFi”) package revealed, take a look!

Monday, August 31st, 2009

Remember we recently brought you the *must have* gadget for mobile desktop ninjas, the Novatel Wireless 2352 MiFi unit?

Well, 3UK are launching their own version. This month.

September 18th to be precise. (Or the night before if you’re talking with the telesales/online people).

Have a look:

It’s rather nifty, eh?

Here’s the release from 3:

Mobile Wi-Fi, also known as MiFi®, is a new service from 3 which connects to 3’s network allowing you to create your own mobile Wi-Fi connection. You get a small device, called a wireless modem. This sends out a Wi-Fi signal so that you can connect a range of Wi-Fi enabled devices to the internet without the need for wires or a USB connection. No fixed-line is needed; you simply need coverage from the UK’s biggest 3G network to connect.

You can connect multiple devices to the internet at the same time, so while you are checking e-mails on a netbook, you can also download a track from iTunes onto your iPod touch.

You don’t need to install any software. Just insert a 3 UK SIM, switch on the wireless modem and connect to the Mobile Internet using a Wi-Fi signal. A Wi-Fi enabled device will automatically pick up the signal and ask for an eight-digit network key which you will have to put in just once for every new device you want to connect.

Marc Allera, Sales & Marketing Director at 3 UK says, “Mobile Wi-Fi is the future of internet access on the move and we’re bringing it to customers at price points that make it accessible and affordable. It’s the perfect gift for people after genuine wireless internet access on the go to complement the laptops and iPod touchs that will undoubtedly make their way onto Christmas lists across the UK this December.”

The specs… 86 x 46 x 10mm and 99g weight.

7.2Mbps HSDPA, 5.76Mbps HSUPA.

Supports micro SD 32GB. Quadband. 802.11b/g.

Up to 5 hours worth of ‘active usage’.

Now then…

The best bit… costs. You’ve got two options —

* ‘Broadband 5GB 1 month’ is a one month contract which includes 5GB of data for just £15 a month. With this deal the wireless modem costs just £69.99.

* For an upfront charge of £99.99, Mobile Wi-Fi will also be available as a ‘Ready to Go’ kit. The deal includes a wireless modem and 3GB worth of data which can be used over a 3 month period. After the data has been used up, the modem can be used on a Pay As You Go basis.

Genius.

Who’s going to be wandering out to buy one of these then?

I will.

If you’d like a reminder about just how brilliant these types of devices are, here’s the Novatel vid again:


Download M4V Video | Subscribe to Podcast | Embed video

Posted in Devices, Mobile Data, Operators, Three | Comments

3UK launches advertising on it’s mobile broadband dashboard

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

If you’re a 3UK customer, and you’ve got the latest version of their mobile broadband dashboard running, you’ll shortly be seeing some modifications in the form of advertising.

Way back when, 3 completely surprised the other operators with the success of it’s tenner-a-month deal for mobile broadband (including a dongle on a 12 month contract). The dongles FLEW off the shelves and ever since then, 3 have never looked back.

But with more than a million mobile broadband users, that’s actually a rather ripe audience. Indeed the 3 mobile broadband dashbord receives 30 million impressions a month.

Brands have been clamouring to get stuck in — and the first to do a deal is Yell UK.

Here’s a screenshot:

Nifty, eh?

Brands will need to be quick. It’s a super opportunity to hit users when they’re a) connected to the internet and b) able to click to buy/view. 3’s sister network in Austria has already been doing this for a little while with brands such as VW, Suzuki, Kia, Peugeot, Mazda, Honda and Land Rover. And they’ve been seeing click-through rates of up to 6%. Absolutely shockingly good compared to the industry average of … let’s be honest, next to nothing.

So 3UK is on the hunt for a set of exclusive partners who will each receive in the region of 1-3m impressions a month. So if you’re interested, the chap you need to speak to is Neil Andrews, Head of Advertising at 3.

And for the mobile ad agencies reading, seriously get stuck into 3 and add them to your inventory options for your clients.

Posted in Mobile Data, Three | Comments

3 and Vodafone: Two roaming data cost cuts, two very different offers

Monday, July 6th, 2009

Why do mobile tariffs always seem to be overly complicated? With the recent July 1st EU charges cap there was a chance to make the cost of using data services abroad nice and simple. So how did the operators do? Let’s take two examples.

First, Vodafone. They announced a cut in roaming charges across the EU to £4.99 a day for up to 25MB. That works out, as the press release helpfully says, at the equivalent of 20p per MB. But wait, in true operator fashion there’s a little bit of a complicated twist.

That £4.99 a day deal is just for mobile data. Under 1MB Vodafone will charge you a per KB rate, with 100KB costing 50p. Go above a meg and you’ll instantly be charged £4.99 for the remaining 24MB. What happens after 25MB? You get charged another £4.99, and get another 25MB. And so on and so forth.

If you’re planning to use your mobile broadband dongle, that price doubles – but so does the inclusive data bundle. Whether the per KB charging for dongle usage remains is a little unclear, but you’ll be charged £9.99 for 50MB chunks of data. Again, this is all on a daily basis – so if you use 2MB of data every day for a week on your laptop it’ll end up costing a rather hefty £69.93.

If you venture outside of the Europe (Vodafone have defined all of Europe – whether it’s in the EU or not – as ‘zone 1′), it’s £14.99 per day per 25MB on your phone, or £29.99 per day per 50MB on your dongle.

At this point, I’d imagine even the more maths-savvy consumer is a bit lost in figures. Why can’t things just be simple – one price for data per megabyte whether it be on your laptop or mobile?

Cue 3 and their new charges. £1.25 per MB – no minimums, no bundles, no 24 hour windows and no differentiation between your phone or a dongle. A pricing model so simple that it takes one sentence to explain, versus four paragraphs. OK so it may be more expensive per megabyte if you’re a heavy user, but at least you don’t need a calculator and a calendar to work it all out.

Posted in Mobile Data, Three, Vodafone | Comments

Vodafone and 3 cited in T-Mobile UK takeover dance

Monday, June 29th, 2009

It’s been another weekend of rumours over the future of T-Mobile UK – with reports that Vodafone and 3’s parent company might team up to launch a bid for the troubled UK mobile division of Deutsche Telekom.

The Financial Times claims that the Newbury-based operator has been sniffing around its rival, said to be worth between €3bn and €4bn – and may be considering teaming up with Hutchinson Whampoa – the parent company of 3 – to launch a bid.

Even if Vodafone went it alone, the combination the two operators in the UK market would give a market share of 40%, according to the BBC. Such a large chunk of subscribers would certainly ring alarm bells with the UK Competition Commission and the higher powers of the EU in Brussels – although the BBC says it’s not uncommon for operators to have such dominance in other European countries such as France and Spain.

Vodafone are not the first operator to be linked with a bid for T-Mobile. Previous rumours of interest by Orange were vehemently denied a few weeks ago after a reported rebuffal by Deutsche Telekom, plus there’s still the distinct possibility of a ‘mega-operator’ plan involving 3, Skype and T-Mobile – which I exclusively wrote about back in May.

Whatever the outcome, one fact remains – being a mobile operator is no longer the equivalent to having a licence to print money. Vodafone are currently going through a £1bn cost cutting plan after it recently announced a 53.5% fall in annual pre-tax profits from £9bn to £4.2bn, and Deutsche Telekom recently wrote off €1.8 billion on T-Mobile UK.

Posted in Operators, Orange, T-Mobile, Three, Vodafone | Comments

3 surprise the planet and announce the Nokia N97

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

The other night I was sat next to the cream of Nokia’s development and marketing team at the Meffys awards (more on that in another post). Most of the Nokia chaps were sporting Nokia E71s — although one of them bucked that trend and showed off his very nice Nokia N85. Gorgeous screen.

I commented that I was due an upgrade on 3. (I’ve actually been due an upgrade for, I dunno, maybe 9 months — but I haven’t found any handset worth bothering with. Yes I like the idea of the INQ1. But I’ll just *buy* that. What is it, 60? 70 pounds?)

One of the Nokia America chaps, waving the E71 at me, asked, ‘Can’t you get one of these on 3?’

He was right, ‘Yes you can, but… you know, it’s old now. 3 launched it when the E71 cycle was nearing the end. It’ll be YEARS before the bring out the E72.’

The chap sighed.

I sighed.

Then this very afternoon, not seconds before 11am, I got a Skype message from Anthony over at 3’s Business PR team to tell me that the Nokia N97 — Nokia’s current pride and joy — is coming to 3. Today.

Goodness me. That’s a departure from the network that usually gets the cool Nokia handsets about a year after everyone else citing all sorts of reasons.

Brilliant.

It’s launching with a bit of pizazz though. It comes with Skype. That’s the biggie with 3. You get free Skype-to-Skype calls, period. (Available on almost all of their handsets). It’s really causing a lot of attention on the High Streets here in the UK because it’s genuine. Get a PAYG handset for, say, £80 from Skype — get another for your friend, you talk for free. If you’ve got another friend in the States, as long as he or she is on Skype somehow (computer/Skypephone, whatever) you talk for free.

Amazing.

If you’d like to take 3 up on their Nokia N97 offer — complete with free Skype calls — you’ll need to part with a paltry £35 per month (18-month contract) and you’ll need to add on an extra £5 per month if you’d like unlimited data. That price plan gets you 300 minutes/texts.

Genius. A pretty good deal considering it’s a premium handset.

Or stump up £47 per month for 1,100 minutes or texts (combination) and unlimited landline calls.

Or you can stump up a wholly reasonable £319.99 and buy the handset on on PAYG. Which will get you 90 days of free voicemail, a free bundle of text and 150mb of internet data.

The black Nokia N97 is available on 3’s site for pre-order here. Or get it in store on the 26th June.

3 is back!

And I’m pleased I held my contract upgrade back until now as I think I’ll get one of these.

Posted in Devices, Three | Comments

Volunteers wanted, must be willing to lock up their old mobile

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

3 lock up your mobile cage

Are you fed up with your old mobile? Willing to swap it for a shiny new handsets for a few weeks? We’ve three brand new 3 handsets, three cages, and are looking for three volunteers willing to lock up their old mobile and try 3 and Skype for a fortnight.

Here’s the deal. We’ve teamed up with the guys at 3mobilebuzz to promote free Skype calling on 3. The challenge? 3 want to lock up your mobile, and replace it with a model that’s a little more ‘3′ (yes I know, terrible pun).

We’ve got an INQ1, Sony Ericsson C510, and a Nokia E63 – all with a 3 SIM card and free calls for you to try for a couple of weeks. There’s also a cute little ‘phone cell’ (again, another terrible pun) for you to lock up your old handset.

The catch? There isn’t one really – all we ask in return is you take care of the handset, don’t flush it down the toilet, and bring it back in a couple of weeks. Oh, and we want to know how you got on, so we’ll be asking to write a little piece about how you found your two weeks with your new handset, free Skype calling and 3 in general.

Interested? Drop a comment on this post telling us what your current mobile is, and which phone you’d like to try, and we’ll pick three lucky people and sort the rest.

Update: Just a small note to apologise to Lloyd at the Tuttle Club, where I (Alex) was planning to give out the handsets. Lloyd has quite rightly pointed out that commercial organisations wishing to do promotional work at Tuttle need to agree it with him before hand, and pay a sponsorship fee. As I just happened to be there for something else on Friday morning, it sort of made sense. Neither Ewan, myself or anyone associated with this blog have received any renumeration for this promotion from 3, 3mobilebuzz, or their associated companies – and we aren’t being paid for it. However I understand there are firm procedures in place, and apologise if anyone thought I was trying to circumvent them.

If you’re interested in a handset, add your comment and we’ll get in touch to get an address of where we can post it to.

Posted in Mobile, Three | Comments

Vodafone abolishes European roaming charges for the summer

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

You read that right.

Fluck me sideways.

From June 1, pay as you go and pay monthly consumer customers can talk, text and send picture messages from over 35 countries across Europe this summer for the same price as at home.

From May 15, calls from the UK to friends and family overseas from as little as 5 pence per minute.

Businesses also benefit from cost savings on roaming.

What a challenge to the industry. I’m really pleased to see this rather sweeping, surprising and exciting move from Vodafone:

So much so, I’m going to post the whole release:

Vodafone UK is abolishing roaming charges this summer and bringing in great value prices for international calls, making it easier for customers to phone home while abroad and make calls abroad from the UK. There are cost savings for business customers too.

From 1 June to the end of August, Vodafone Pay as you Go and Pay Monthly customers will be able to call, text and send picture messages to friends and family back home from over 35 countries knowing that it will cost exactly the same as if they were in the UK. For example, a customer on a plan with 600 minutes and unlimited texts who opts in to Vodafone Passport would use these minutes and texts when they are on holiday with no extra charges.

Existing Vodafone Passport customers automatically benefit from the three month promotion. From May 15, customers who don’t currently use Vodafone Passport can sign up for free by texting the word ‘Passport’ to 97888 if they pay monthly or to 2345 if they use Pay as you go , or they can visit vodafone.co.uk/roaming.

In addition, from May 15, Vodafone Pay as you go customers on the Simply tariff, will find that calls they make from the UK to friends and family overseas will be even better value. International calls will cost from as little as 5p per minute to both landlines and mobiles. Customers can opt in to the new Vodafone International call plan by calling 36888 or texting the word ‘international’ to 2345 from their handset, visiting vodafone.co.uk/international or speaking to an adviser in one of Vodafone’s 400 stores.

“These are two great value offers for our customers this summer. With our Vodafone Passport promotion you can sit on the beach with your phone switched on knowing you can take and make a call just as you would if you were in your back garden,” says Ian Shepherd consumer director for Vodafone UK. “Vodafone International is good news for the millions of UK pay as you go customers as they can now make calls to family and friends around the world from just 5p.”

Reducing the cost of roaming for businesses

Vodafone UK business customers on Anytime or Your Plan price plans will also benefit from the same three month Vodafone Passport promotion from June 1. Customers on these plans and already on Vodafone Passport will automatically qualify for the promotion. Non Vodafone Passport customers can opt in by calling their account manager or visiting www.vodafone.co.uk/businessroaming for further information.

And the countries included?

Countries included in the Vodafone Passport summer promotion: Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Canary Islands, Channel Islands, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroes, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Isle of Man, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madeira, Malta, Monaco, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Vatican City, New Zealand, Australia.

More thoughts and analysis later!

Originally published on Ewan.net and automatically republished here on Mobile Industry Review. View the original post.

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Posted in Hot, LG, Mobile, News, Three, Vodafone, ewan | Comments

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