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 has launched its 3G network and the start of a massive advertising campaign focussed around the theme of enabling people to make productive use, thanks to 3G content, of short intervals of otherwise dead time.
Vodafone Australia CEO, Russell Hewitt, summed up the theme of the campaign by saying "3G has the power to change the way we live our lives, helping us to extract more fun, entertainment and productivity from every moment – it's all about making the most of now."
Vodafone intends to target areas where people have idle time such as bus stops and buses, trains and train stations and airports. It will have stands in major airports demonstrating its products and services, as well as offering free coffee and massages.
In Sydney and Melbourne there will be Vodafone buses kitted out to demonstrate the company's wares and providing transport, between locations as yet unspecified. The company also intends to have a strong presence in shopping malls.
Hewitt described the launch as "the biggest day for Vodafone since we launched 12 years ago", telling the assembled media that they were "part of history".
The connection with Vodafone's entry into Australia may me more than symbolic. The company famously got it wrong then by, unlike Optus, choosing not to resell Telstra's analogue service as a precursor to 3G. Many observers believe that decision was the reason it has always struggled in the Australian market in third position after Telstra and Optus. 3G could well be it 'second chance' to achieve the marketing ranking it craves.
At launch services are available in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra metropolitan areas and at airports in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. The network will cover metropolitan Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth and key regional areas such as the New South Wales Central Coast and Queensland Gold Coast next year.
The key to "making the most of now" will be Vodafone live! with 3G: a portal to "hundreds of thousands of music tracks, the latest music videos, preview movie trailers, 'mobisodes' of shows like South Park, Love & Hate and 24:Conspiracy, Sky News, Fox Sports, high-resolution 3D and retro arcade-style games."
Vodafone live! with 3G launches with six handsets: the Sharp 903, the Nokia 6680, the Samsung z500, the Sony Ericsson V800, the Motorola V1050, and the Sony Ericsson V600.
The Sharp 903 is exclusive to Vodafone and is the first in Australia with a 3 megapixel camera. It sells for $1199.
Vodafone is also targeting the mobile broadband market with a mobile data card for PC and Apple Mac laptops, which gives users data access at broadband speeds (384kbps) in 3G coverage areas. At $99 per month for "unlimited" usage (subject to fair use limits above 1GBPs) it is comparable to iBurst and Telstra's recently released Mobile Broadband services.
David Bass
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