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]

Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) and its competitor in many markets, Hutchison’s Three, are joining forces in Australia. Despite the fact that Vodafone is stronger of the two carriers, the new company will be formed as a 50/50 joint venture and will be called VHA. However, to compensate for the value difference, Vodafone will receive a deferred payment of AU$500 million from VHA, as well as an additional brand licensing fee of 1% of service revenues from VHA.

The transaction is expected to close by mid-2009 once all the interested parties approve the deal. The parties include Hutchison shareholders, Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board and Competition and Consumer Commission.

[Via: MobileBurn]

In a post that made interesting reading, TechDigest has today compared the various UK Operators against each other. For those that are not familiar, there are 5 major OpCos in the UK:

• O2 (NYSE: TEF)
• Vodafone (NYSE: VOD)
• T-Mobile (NYSE: DT)
• Orange
• 3

I make no secret of the fact that I am an O2 subscriber, and largely I find them to be very good indeed. However, TechDigest have gone for quite a detailed approach, comparing coverage, pricing, handsets, and value.

I won’t spoil the outcome for you and tell you here who they rated 1^st – that would spoil the surprise, and also the reading of the great (long!) article that was written. If you do read the article, it would be interesting to know whether you think there are any other criteria the Operators could/should be assessed on – the industry measures are usually ARPUs, and net adds/losses, but is there something you think (however curveball it may be) that would be a good measure to compare them all?

You can find the TechDigest article here.

[Via: TechDigest]

Tech Digest is reporting that 3UK has announced it will be offering lotsa new “On-Demand” mobile TV (I would assume that to mean 3G streaming) – including stuff like, South Park, The HIlls, and Pimp My Ride!

It’s going to cost between £1.29-£1.99 apparently for a week’s access to an episode, which is an addition to the existing service (which incidentally has coverage of things like Sky Sports).

Hmm, well I’d pay to be able to access South Park – it’s just awesomely funny, along with that other animated classic Family Guy. £1.29? Yep, I’d swallow that – just take me to the content!

Seriously though, it’s good to see Operators (especially ones like 3UK) continuing to build out their content catalogue – people need new stuff to consume, and popular shows like these should be in high demand, on demand!

[Story via: Tech Digest / Image via: Three]

3UK has come in with a £9/month tariff for users, trying to get them on to contracts, and out of prepay (and probably attract some new users in to the bargain!).

The deal gives the customer a Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) G502, 100 cross network minutes or 100 texts (or any mix of the two), 300 FREE 3-to-3 calls, and FREE voicemail access.

I should be very clear at this juncture and say that the £9/month is a promotional offer, which runs out on 31st January – i.e. you’d need to be signed up by then.

Overall, I’d say that’s a pretty good deal – whilst the handset isn’t the highest spec, the line rental is coming down in to the “utility” sort of rate, much like broadband in the UK has done of late – that’s now available on fixed telephone line for £5-£10/month, and on mobile (USB dongle) for £10-20/month.

Particularly given the current economic climate, I’d imagine this deal would go down quite well…. if you fancy a bit of this, check out 3UK’s page here.

[Via: Mobile Today]