Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Vodafone will sell Dell’s Inspiron Mini 9 netbook in stores with
built-in mobile broadband for $69.95 per month in a deal that’s great
value and an Australian first.
Dell’s Inspiron Mini 9 will be the first netbook in Australia to come with a 3.5G mobile broadband modem built-in, despite notebooks having had the feature available for some time.
But for the time being, it seems the only way you’ll be able to buy a Dell netbook with inbuilt broadband will be to buy one from Vodafone at a $0 “upfront” cost and $69.95 per month over 24 months – with 5GB of broadband to use each month.
The Vodafone and Dell deal will “begin early December” at selected Vodafone stores and at Vodafone’s website, with both companies calling it a “new era of mobile Internet connectivity”.
Vodafone’s Edward Goff is excited, saying the Mini 9 “offers the familiar user experience of a traditional laptop computer, while its compact and lightweight casing gives convenience and mobility of the latest smart phones. Customers can now use a single device to log on and access their emails, catch up on the latest news headlines, or update their social networking page, anywhere, anytime”.
Dell Australia’s Evan Williams said: “Dell Australia is excited to be the first company to offer a netbook in Australia with embedded mobile broadband. Our plans have been to give users the best mobile experience possible – and today’s news demonstrates how we are doing this.”
Although the Dell and Vodafone deal is “not exclusive”, Dell says it isn’t talking to other carriers at the moment, but surely other netbook makers will now pounce upon the opportunity to do similar deals with other telcos (and Vodafone itself) in the future.
The minimum cost over 24 months is AUD $1678.80, with $39.95 of the monthly cost set aside for 5GB of broadband, and the other $30 per month contributing to the cost of the 3.5G equipped Inspiron Mini 9.
An “Early Exit Fee” of $55 per month applies for the months remaining on contract, which is broken up as being $25 5GB mobile broadband plan plus $30 for Netbook.
Data not used will expire each month, and included data is only valid in Australia, with excess data charged at $0.10c per megabyte.
For more details on the Vodafone and Dell deal, please see my earlier story, which includes full specs.
David Bass
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