A 3 Skypephone for Christmas, for $0

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 30 October 2007 10:20

Your IT - Home IT

As anticipated, 3 Australia has announced that the 3 Skypephone, launched in the UK yesterday ,  will be available in Australia before Christmas. It could prove to be a landmark event in the development of the mobile industry. In Australia it will cost $179 for prepaid customers and will be available free on any on any 3 capped or Talk Business plan. It will comes with 4,000 minutes of free Skype-to-Skype calls and 10,000 free Skype chat messages each month. It will be available from 3 stores and dealers, online at www.three.com.au, through 3 Direct, and through eBay. Customers who do not already have a Skype account will be able to create one from the 3 Skypephone.

Gartner Australia's research director, mobile devices, Nick Ingelbrecht, said: "It's good for getting the mass market on board and great from a Hutchison marketing perspective...They get to strengthen their community proposition. They are the only mobile carrier doing this sort of thing in such an aggressive way, and it does tend to bring the 3 community together globally and that is quite attractive."

Perhaps the most significant aspect of the announcement is summed up in 3's statement: "The 3 Skypephone marks the next step in the mobile revolution from 3 that brought Australia cap plans, great value mobile broadband and affordable Internet on the mobile."

Commenting on the UK launch, John Delaney, principal analyst at Ovum, said that "not only was 3 encouraging its customers to use VoIP but bending over backwards to make it easy for them," and that "as the smallest and newest of the UK mobile operators, 3's best hope for growth is to disrupt the status quo wherever it can."