At a recent press conference (covered by Reuters), 3UK CEO Kevin Russell had a number of interesting things to say – some headlines below:
- 3 are focusing on mobile broadband and Internet-based mobile services (such as Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, and Skype) to lure customers over to their network
- More than 600,000 customers have mobile broadband kit now
- Mobile Termination Rates (the fees that Mobile Operators charge each other to terminate others’ calls in to their networks) in the UK are set at a level that makes it very difficult for 3UK to lower call prices any more
There are some key things that you can read from this – firstly that 3UK is heavily positioning to become a broadband provider (which it pretty much has the network to do), but also they are looking at their capacity and cost base, and trying to compete on all axes. Quite where the regulatory framework will go is anyone’s guess, but I would bet that 3UK will be trying to really drive cost reduction in order to further boost their business against the four larger incumbents.
[Via: Reuters]