Mobiles2day - Mobile Industry News

Laptops are getting cheaper and cheaper nowadays. Carphone Warehouse and PC World even started to give away free laptops when you signup for 18 or 24 month contract with them. Now T-Mobile offering free laptop as well, together with mobile broadband, let’s look at this offer in more detail.

First of all you need to sign up for 24 months mobile broadbnd contract for £30 per month. In return you will get free laptop, USB modem, mobile broadband, and free unlimited access to T-Mobile’s WiFi spots. Sounds good, but over 24 months you will pay T-Mobile £720. If you buy laptop from major retailer on it’s own, it will cost you around £299 for similar spec machine. If you take a mobile broadband from 3 or T-Mobile on it’s own, it will cost you £15 per month, in 2 years that makes £360. If we add those 2 figures up: £299+£360=£659 which is far less than what you will pay to T-Mobile. With T-Mobile’s contract you are getting free WiFi hotspots access, but if you have mobile broadband, you don’t really need WiFi, do you? Also, T-Mobile claims that you can “Surf as much as you like with no run-on rates”. You still have 3GB fair usage policy, but if you go beyond that, T-Mobile will not charge you anything extra. What they going to do is as follows (according to customer services):

1. First month you will be warned by letter about your excess usage

2. If you exceed your 3GB limit following month, your internet access speed may be reduced for couple of weeks

3. If you exceed again in 3rd month, you internet speed may be reduced up to 2 months.

So if you frequently visit data intensive websites, download music/video, listen to online radio or watch movies online, this offer may not be for you. Otherwise for lighter users offer is ok. Good thing with T-Mobile is that you will never get nasty surpise in terms of huge bill. I would advise to check other offers by PC World or Carphone Warehouse or buying laptop and mobile broadband separately.

Ikea, international home products retailer that sells flat pack furniture and accessories is set to launch new mobile service called Family Mobile. Service will be launched on 8th August 2008.

Ikea will operate as mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) and will be supported by T-Mobile network. Under the agreement with Mobile Partners UK Ltd, T-Mobile is providing IKEA with prepay services that will be available to IKEA FAMILY loyalty programme members, which currently have around 1.4 million members in the UK.

Jim Hyde, Chief Executive of T-Mobile UK, said:

“We’re delighted to have been chosen as the network behind the new Ikea mobile service. Our long experience in delivering white label services to MVNO partners and the independently assessed superiority of our network will ensure Ikea realises its ambitions to offer an exceptional value prepay service to members of its loyalty programme.”

Ikea will offer SIM card package as the UK’s lowest priced pay-as-you-go service, which will offer one low price of 9p per minute for calls and 6p for each text message at any time and any day. Family Mobile will be launched to Ikea Family members on 8 August. Prior to this, on 5 August, Ikea will present every one of its 9,500 Ikea employees in the UK with a special introduction to the package by giving them a free Family Mobile SIM card with £5 of pre-loaded credit and a mobile phone.

Family Mobile has been designed by Mobile Partners UK to be simple to use with no hidden costs. Members of Ikea Family will only pay for the air time they use with no fixed monthly payments and no minimum spend beyond an initial £10 of airtime purchased. Customers can keep their existing mobile number and can choose to have a household account with a number of SIM cards, allocating spend between registered members.

T-Mobile already has successful MVNO partnership with Virgin Mobile, world’s first Mobile Virtual Network Operator, launched in 1999.

Source 

Today T-Mobile is launching multi-million marketing campaign to promote their £30 tariffs Solo and Combi. T-Mobile is confident that they provide best value for £30 than any other network in UK. New TV ad will start today and will appear before tonight’s Euro 2008 semi-final. Apart from that there will be billboard signs and ads in newspapers.

Not only T-Mobile promises best deal, it also assures you that in the future if you find more minutes for £30, T-Mobile will either match it, or beat it!

This is a bold move from T-Mobile, this could start a fierce competition between network providers. Flext made a big impact few years ago and this could be another event which will keep UK mobile operators on their feet.

T-Mobile today announced that from July 1st it will cut roaming data charges. Reduction is substantial, from current £7.50 per 1MB, price will drop to £1.50, which is 80% reduction! This is good news for business travellers, who are required to travel extensively within EU and need constant access to email.

CEO of T-Mobile Jim Hyde said:

“This substantial cut in European roaming charges signals our commitment to make mobile use overseas much more affordable and flexible. We have seen a growing demand to access the internet and make calls while traveling outside the UK. We are staying true to our reputation for providing exceptional value by introducing transparent and flexible tariffs for roaming that go a long way to leveling the cost of using your mobile at home and abroad.”

“We’ve been working hard to drive efficiencies in our business in order to pass these savings on to our customers in a number of ways. These latest measures will allows our customers the confidence to use the internet and make calls as they would at home. This is no longer the domain of the prolific business user. Occasional users who have relied on local phone services to call family and friends back home now have the freedom to use their mobiles without fear of the financial consequences. With one in four new contract customers signing on for Mobile Broadband and our user numbers expected to quadruple in 2008, we have taken timely action to remove the single biggest constraint for the growing number of people who rely on mobile internet access while travelling in Europe for business or pleasure.”

Also price for sending text messages will be reduced from 40p a message to 25p. This change will take effect from 30th August. T-Mobile is planning to introduce special roaming bundles from 1st August, called Euro Holiday Boosters.

The Euro Holiday Boosters will include the following bundles:
• £5 - Gives £7.50 of allowance that can be used on minutes or texts or any combination of the two
• £10 - Gives £15.00 of allowance that can be used on minutes or texts or any combination of the two
• £20 - Gives £30.00 of allowance that can be used on minutes or texts or any combination of the two
• £30 - Gives £45.00 of allowance that can be used on minutes or texts or any combination of the two

Good initiative by T-Mobile, which follows recent unpopular increase in charges for calls to 08xx numbers. You can about that here.

If you are calling 08xx numbers from your T-Mobile handset, then you probably received text message from T-Mobile about new charges to call these numbers.

I personally call these numbers for international calls (Telediscount, Telestunt etc), so looking at new pricing structure, I guess I will have to use landline instead.

Here are new charges from T-Mobile website:

On some tariffs, price increase is pretty drastic, from 10p to 40p! So please be careful now when dialling 08xx numbers! Calling various customer services numbers may now cost you an arm or leg, especially when they put you on hold.