T-Mobile discovers new demographic: web users

[Jon3G]

By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Published Thursday 30th June 2005 07:45 GMT
T-Mobile will put fewer obstacles in the way of phone users who want to get at the internet in Europe. Rather than diverting them to its "walled garden" content, it's going to make Google the home page on high end devices and will introduce a new tarriff.

The offering, called "web'n'walk", will be rolled out in Germany and Austria first, with the UK, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic to follow. Four devices will be supported: Nokia's 6800 running Opera, the Sidekick 2, T-Mobile's MDA Windows-based smartphone, and the SDA IV PDA, due in September.

However subscribers with mid-range or low-end phones will still be pointed to its "t-zones" WAP pages, where they'll be hawked ringtones and graphics.

The new tariffs include a €10 a month bundle of 30 MB, which also applies to the 3G network, with each extra megabyte costing €1.90. For Sidekick II users, the 30MB will be lifted at the end of the year.

It's a frank admission that 'walled garden' approach hasn't boosted the Average Revenue Per Subscriber that carriers value. T-Mobile said it expects the open web to boost ARPUs significantly.

T-Mobile's US operation has offered unlimited data to Sidekick users since its launch two and a half years ago, in a plan which now costs $29.99 (but with no bundled talk time), the same as T-Mobile's unlimited GPRS plan. ®

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06...nwalls_garden/

[gorilla]

Also mentioned here bbc news
This is good news as it shows that the network is listening and watching what customers are using their handsets for. 3 are you listening? No, I didn't think so
It also shows that the network is realising that there is no point having sopisticated handsets on their network if the customer cannot use the handset to its fullest.

[Jon3G]

Cant agree more, whats the point in having a handset like the 6680 or 6630 on a network with restrictions. Its like putting a speed limiter on a F1 car that can do 200mph plus and saying you can only do 50mph Mr Jenson Button

[Ben]

The constant misuse of the term Walled Garden is grating on me somewhat. Journalists seem unable to differentiate between an Operator Portal which is the default landing page, but access to other data from the Internet can be obtained, and a Walled Garden where the customer only has access to the Operator Portal.

Only Three operates a Walled Garden. The other networks operate Portals.

Who in gods name pays these people?

[Jon3G]

We do by buying there mags and watching there programmes and through our licence fees,

[gorilla]

I spot a gap in the market - you guys should offer yourselves as freelance consultants to the media re 3g.
The media here does a very poor job at educating its readers. Although how much of that is down to companies not providing proper press releases and failing to answer questions properly?

[Hands0n]

Yea, the other day a Daily Mail reporter referred to Bluetooth as an "Infra Red technology" - I nearly pi55ed my pants laughing - and had to post it on the Forum elsewhere. The Lord save us from these "experts".