3 X-Series: Mobile Going IP All The Way
November 16 2006 - Mark your calendars. Mobile Network Operator Hutchison 3 has just made a spectacular announcement today together with big players in the Internet space (eBay, Google, Mobicast, Nokia, Orb, Skype, Sling Media, Sony Ericsson, Microsoft and Yahoo) to bring their services into the mobile network for a flat fee (called X-Series).
According to the hype, you’ll get free Skype-to-Skype calls to any PC or other X-Series user worldwide, be able to search on Google and Yahoo, send MSN instant messages to your friends, watch your TV from a Slingbox, access your computer at home with Orb and buy or sell stuff on eBay.
So far the only thing getting between the majority of consumers and the mobile Internet has been the cost of accessing online content and the limitations of certain sites on certain handsets. 3 says it is going to eradicate these problems by charging a set fee and making sure that its handsets support the content properly. The first handsets to be sold on the X-Series plan will be the Nokia N73 and the Sony Ericsson W950i Walkman phone.
What does this mean? It means that 3 is allowing these big Internet Properties to exert their presence in 3’s part of the mobile space. Will 3 eventually devolve into a provider of bandwidth, a bit pipe? Or have they finally found a way to maximize their 3G investments? Only time will tell.
