Vodafone takes another swipe 3's X Series

Stuart Corner
Monday, 17 December 2007 04:36

IT Industry - Strategy

Vodafone is offering its mobile customers unlimited access to selected social networking, email and IM sites in what appears to be its latest response to 3's X-Series offerings. Vodafone Live! customers can pay: $5 per month to get unlimited access to Windows Live Hotmail and Messenger and Yahoo!7 Mail and Messenger; $8 per month get unlimited access to YouTube, eBay, MySpace and RSVP; or $9.95 per month for all of these.

3's X-Series offering, launched in March 2007, offers unlimited access to e eBay, Google Search, MSN Hotmail and Yahoo!7 Mail and Yahoo! & Windows Live Messenger. All but the entry level plan also include unlimited access to 3's equivalent of Vodafone Live!, Planet 3. Shortly after the launch of X-Series, Vodafone cut the prices for its data plans .

X-Series currently comes in four variants: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum at $12, $20, $30 and $40 per month, all of which include a general data quota that can be used for any Internet access (100MB, 500MB, 1Gb and 2GB respectively), as well as a generous allowance of Skype-to-Skype calling minutes (200, 1000, 2000, 4000).

For general Internet access from their mobile, Vodafone customers would have to pay $29.95, $49.95, $99.95 and $139.95 for 100M, 300M, 1GB and 2GB respectively. So the X Series offering seems much better value (Vodafone has lower data rates on 12 or 24 month contracts but only for access via a dedicated data modem, not from a cellphone). However the downside of 3 is its limited coverage: major metro areas only, outside of which hefty data charges apply.