According to Mobiletoday.co.uk, 3UK has launched the first ‘zero pound’ SIM-only tariff - which gives customers free Skype too (if they use a 3 phone). The deal comes in on June 17, and further builds out 3’s selection of tariffs which have Skype inclusive.

Apparently it’s a rolling tariff, so customers have only 1 month lock-in with the deal - a nice touch I think. But more interesting is the fact that Three seem to be on some kind of a mission to give customer massive amounts of free minutes (albeit with some limitations on who is being called). Ostensibly though, Skype on 3UK is now very similar, cost-wise, to Skype as you would use it on the InterWeb.

Whether this is going to take off is hard to tell - what do the IntoMobile readership think?

[Via: Mobiletoday.co.uk]

You’ve probably heard that Hutchison’s and Vodafone’s Australian operations want to merge to create a new operator called VHA, which stands for Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) Hutchinson Australia. Well, the government has nothing against the deal, even though they raised some concerns earlier that it could kill the competition in the market.

The new founding is that the move is unlikely to hurt competition, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). The reasoning behind this flip-flop is the “increasing need for mobile network operators to have sufficient scale to be able to continue to make significant investments in their network capabilities.” Hold on a sec - am I reading this correctly? Hutchinson and Vodafone don’t have the money to invest in infrastructure?

Sure, Australian market is not that large, and they need to make some money along the way, but we’re talking about two friggin’ giants here.

Anyway, now that the government doesn’t have anything against the deal, guess it’s all about the timing and operational things to complete the deal. We’ll certainly cover the official “VHA lives now” news, have no doubt about it.

Well palmwebosblog.com has narrowed it down to a few Operators, and discounted Three within that mix! I’m not going to spoil their analysis, or the good work done by the Really Mobile Project in checking stuff out too, but instead comment where I believe the Pre is going - and I reckon Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) is where it’s going to be at - why? - just call it a gut feel….

Which Operator do you want to see the Pre on? Let us know!

[Via: palmwebosblog.com via: Really Mobile Project]

I reported recently on the news that 3 were to offer free Skype-to-Skype calls - well now they are promo-ing it heavily, with the help of Skype!

The email I received (see pic above) carries quite a bold claim - but then again, free Skype calls on Pre-pay handsets, without needing to top up ever,  is potentially a game-changing offering!

Anyways, if you want to learn more about what 3 have on offer, then check out their site here.

The BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Bold is finally making its way over to H3G (or 3 as we know them) in the UK.

The Bold is a much-discussed device, with many good points (e.g. the keyboard is great), and a couple of bad ones (e.g. the battery life ain’t great). Once it is connected to 3UKs network, it will have access to services such as the 3MusicStore - taking advantage of the multimedia capabilities of the device. It will also support multiple email accounts, and have unlimited Windows Messenger access - so all good on the messaging front then!

It should debut for £30/onth with 500 mins, unlimited text/email/internet/windows live messenger - not a bad deal. Check out more at the Three Store website here.

[Via: 3G.co.uk]

INQ, in case you didn’t know (where have you been?!) have developed a social-neworking handset. INQ are also a Hutchison Whampoa subsidiary, as is the Operator Group “3″, hence the logo you can see in the above pic.

The INQ stand was pretty busy all day, with a constant buzz of people wanting to update their facebook status… since that is one of the many social services you can use on their devices. Their fist device was the INQ1, a device that I have played with, and overall, really liked. For more about that, check here.

All in all, a neatly designed stand, for a neatly designed product. If you want to read more about the INQ1, and INQ’s philosophy, check their site here.

Ben

Bebo keeps adding new partners to its Bebo Open Mobile “scheme.” Latest mobile operator that is joining the social network’s initiative is 3 Ireland.

Under the deal, the Irish operator will launch the Bebo Open Mobile Messaging and Media toolkit, allowing customers to connect directly to friends by text and watch free video content on Bebo from their mobile phone.

Specifically, 3 Ireland subscribers will be able to access the following Bebo services:

• Bebo Open Mobile Internet - customized, 3-branded version of the Bebo mobile Internet platform with 3 navigation, support for direct promotions and a range of customized features.
• Bebo Open Mobile Messaging - allows 3 customers to receive Bebo SMS alerts and updates on their mobile phones through the 51231 short code, as well as upload photos to Bebo through the 53231 short code. Additionally, users can update their Bebo profiles, add photos to their gallery, give virtual gifts and interact with friends through the short code.
• Bebo Open Mobile Video - 3 customers will be able to watch various clips on their mobile and share content with their Bebo buddies.

Commenting on the announcement, 3’s Sales Director, Elaine Carey, said: “At launch, 3 will be the only mobile operator in Ireland that offers this full Bebo content social networking experience. Innovation and value is what we at 3 strive for and the speed at which people are subscribing to Bebo applications shows it’s also exactly what our customers demand.”

Remember that Vodafone and Hutchison announcement that they will merge their Australian operations to form a new company? Well, it seems Australia’s anti-trust regulator doesn’t like the idea. As a matter of fact, they said that the move could hurt competition in the local mobile market.

In the so called “Statement of Issues” document, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said that “the proposed merger raises competition concerns in the short to medium term within the mobile telephony and MBB [mobile broadband] segments of the national market.” Moreover, the regulator said that the prospect of a new entrant to the market was “practically non-existent.” As a result, they say that end users could see an increased pricing, as the two carriers were “each other’s closest competitors” in the metropolitan and prepaid markets.

Another concern was related to competition issues, as Voda and 3 have insights into the network investment plans of rivals Telstra and Optus due to the various network-sharing joint-ventures between the operators. Personally, I don’t buy this argument as I’m sure all operators know their competitors well.

Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) and Hutchison now have a chance to resolve areas of concern, and if everything goes as planned — and we’ll know the regulator’s decision on May 6th — a new operator called VHA (Vodafone Hutchison Australia) will emerge with with 6 million customers and combined total revenues of approximately AU$4 billion ($2.7 billion).

[Via: GSMA newsletter]

3 Sweden/Denmark has selected Vidiator Xenon Hosted Delivery Platform (XHP) to power its Planet 3 Portal and enable more efficient access to applications and downloads for subscribers, the two companies announced today. 

Xenon Mobile Streaming Platform has become popular indeed, with 20 operators and content providers in 20+ countries including: ‘3’, PCCW, Vodafone (NYSE: VOD), NTDoCoMo, Sprint (NYSE: S), KTH, LG Telecom, BSkyB, Onsetel, CNN and AT&T (NYSE: T) to name a few.

XHP manages all facets of encoding, asset management, dynamic bandwidth adaptation, billing integration, device adaptation and mobile streaming and download deliveries “out of the box”. In just a few clicks content managers can upload content, while XHP automatically and seamlessly adapts delivery to any number of multiple devices.  XHP supports streaming to the majority of handsets available today and the technology can detect which encoding is optimal to what device automatically. 

“Opening up walled gardens and letting in content owners directly address targeted subscribers is quickly becoming a cost-effective and efficient model.  As more and more content and services come online, operators increasingly are turning to hosted, 3^rd-party platforms like Vidiator to deliver their branded services because they can do this with huge time-to-market gains,” said Connie Wong, Vidiator CEO.

“Moreover, we see mobile streaming and content at a positive tipping point – mobile network capacity and speed are improving the quality of delivery. Operators know that they can depend upon Vidiator Xenon streaming and encoding technologies, which have gone through nearly ten years of aggressive R&D, rigorous testing and proven itself via highly successful and large-scale operator deployments and industry awards,” continued Wong.

I’ve had the chance to work with Vidiator, and their encoding solutions are top-notch quality-wise - so it’s good to see they are gaining traction with even more Operators. Good work Vidiator!

Hutchison Telecom has reported a 16% growth in revenues, bringing them in a HK$24bn, but here’s the kicker - net income has dropped from HK$66.8bn to a shade under HK$1.9bn - crumbs….

…. but that’s maybe not the most interesting news - Hutchison has also confirmed that it will be spinning off the Hong Kong holding company, which consists of the landline and Mobile operations in Hong Kong and Macau. Hutchison has stated the reason for doing this is that it will allow the value of these two profit-making operations to be better recognised by the public market valuations.

Hmm, okay, but at a time with so much uncertainty on so many different scales, isn’t that a risky strategy? Time, as usual, will tell…..

[Via: Cellular News]