T-Mobile has recently launched a new mobile Internet application package that they promise will be enticing enough to draw users away from their computers and towards browsing the web and sending emails via their phones.
“Mobile Internet will soon gradually replace the habit of accessing the web via fixed devices,” said T-Mobile’s CEO Rene Obermann. “It will completely transform the way we live and work.”
The T-Mobile Web’n’Walk package resembles dial-up service more than broadband. The basic monthly subscription fee is approximately $53 for 100 minutes of talk time and 400 MB of data, with a speed of 384 Kbps. Brian McBride, T-Mobile’s Managing Director in the UK, stated, “If it’s just data, the cost will drop to around $18 per month. This is beyond what users expect. 400 MB is equivalent to about 2,500 emails or 500 websites.”
However, T-Mobile has not offered any promotional forms, such as a 6-month free i-mode T-zone service on O2. While they do not make a direct comparison, they subtly imply that O2’s i-mode is like a “walled garden,” where users are only allowed to explore sites that support this service, whereas Web’n’Walk provides customers with “the entire world of the Internet in the palm of their hand.” Nevertheless, T-Mobile’s T-zone “garden” continues to exist and will be accessible from the main page of Web’n’Walk.
T-Mobile has chosen not to support certain services like VoIP, believing that Internet phones are not yet ready to enter the mainstream market: “Currently, there is not much demand for VoIP, and customers using this technology are facing a range of complex difficulties. We will introduce VoIP with security features in the future when it has become a mainstream service. Many people think VoIP is free, but they forget that Wi-Fi connectivity can be quite expensive.”
Web’n’Walk includes a management program that allows T-Mobile to update, upgrade, and troubleshoot software remotely and at no cost.
P.T. (according to TechWorld)
