I think 3′s x-series price plans were anounced today. I’ve been really interested to see where 3 priced their ‘unlimited’ consumer internet access package, which bundled Skype (only to other Skype users), Orb (for PC media file access), Sling (for live TV streaming) and the less revolutionary Messenger and eBay, as well as unwalled, real internet browsing in a really well explained and marketed bundle.
The news is good – basically, it’s an extra fiver (USD10) for the basic package, and £10 (USD20) per month (for Orb/Sling) _extra_ on top of some already pretty competitive voice/text price plans.
£5 per month is 50% cheaper than T-Mobile’s consumer plain-internet-access fixed price plan, and it’s a slicker proposition to boot (I think there’s got to be a high consumer appeal for the apps bundled on x-series devices).
There are ‘fair use’ limits (details here), but to be honest, they seem, well, pretty fair – a gigabyte of transfer for handset based webpages/email, 80 hours slingbox, 5000 skype minutes and 10,000 MSN Messenger message (which no doubt the average teenager should plough through in a week…).
I think 3, catching up with T-Mobile (who launched flat rate internetearlier in the year (disclaimer; T-Mobile are a client) have really nailed a pretty good start to the mobile internet industry here in the UK – it’s only when there’s _no risk_ to using the internet from a handset will people start to use the internet casually and the net becomes part of a normal ‘mobile’ usage pattern.
It’s also interesting to see the divergent approaches T-Mobile and 3 have taken; they’ve both basically decided (rightly, imho) to treat cellular as a commodityand innovate on pricing, what is, basically a commodity – T-Mobile have taken a ‘sell ‘em cheap’ approach, while 3 have undercut the price _and_ bunched a load of well known, _branded_ services together.
I do think, however, that 3 have missed a significant slice of the early adopter/prosumer market, which at the moment is being amply completely dominated byT-Mobile, who sell a more usable price plan (a few quid a month more) that allows the handset to be used as a 3g modem. They also sell customer wifi hotspot access for a tenner (disclaimer reminder – T-Mobile’s a client), which, combined, is pretty much a perfect price point for a mobile user like me.
Meanwhile the other UK operators, Vodafone (disclaimer, they’re also a client), Orange, oh and o2 seem to be trying to not get caught in the ‘value’ pricing game, but I think this is a mistake…You can’t sit aloof and talk about quality of service and try and layer highly priced services against what is essentially a demand from customers to ‘get out of the way’ and provide unencumbered price-risk-free mobile internet access.
The other operators can’t seem to regard themselves as a commodity, perfectly deomstrated by Vodafone’s ‘Live’ portal/content/services – but if it walks like a commodity, talks like a commodity, well then…if two out of five providers also price access as a commodity, and customers regard it as such, well, then that pretty much seals it.
T-Mobile, while taking even more of a commodity stance than 3 (handsets come with rudimentary ‘t-zones’ and are otherwise stock Nokia/SonyEriccson etc. experiences), have another mobile internet angle by operating wi-fi hotspots – they’re pretty ubiquitous in urban UK (basically they’re in most Starbucks, and there’s hundreds of those…)
Either way, the UK’s mobile internet usage is now well and truly open…it’s a good day.