3’s X-Series

Rating: Nearly caught fire

HSDPA, flat-rate mobile Internet, free-calls, Orb, Sling Media, Google, Yahoo! and Skype. The latest X-Series device from 3 certainly is pressing all the right buttons. That is until – you read the small print.

1. “Free calls” only if you are not roaming.
2. Flat rate Internet but only within “fair usage limits”

This puts a wet cloth on the X-Series immediately. Could 3 be making the same mistakes BASE in Belgium did when it launched its Unlimited offer (that got pulled off the shelves a few months after launch and humiliated the company when it had to drop 20+ users).

Terms such as “free” or “all-inclusive” don’t work on mobile and don’t exist. Any mobile operator that touts them will be shooting itself in the foot.

This is an abstract from The Mobile Search Analyst December 1, 2006 edition.

Related News:

1. BASE 5 new flatrate in Germany for EUR 75 per month
2. BASE 5 – Up the Revolution
3. Jumptap gets USD 26 million in Series D funding
4. 3 Flatrate?
5. BASE GOLD new tariff for total communication