Beginning next week, Vodafone Group PLC, Europe’s largest mobile phone company, will begin offering customers in selected markets high-speed mobile data service based on new third-generation (3G) technology, the company said Thursday.
More than three years after acquiring pricey mobile broadband licenses around Europe, Vodafone is entering the new wireless market with the launch of a dual-mode PC card for 3G and General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) networks. The data card service for notebook users is the first of its kind in Europe, the company said.
The Vodafone Mobile Connect 3G/GPRS data card will initially allow users to download data at speeds up to 384Kbps and upload at speeds up to 64Kbps, according to Vodafone spokeswoman Emma Conlon. The service is roughly 10 times faster than GPRS, she said.
Vodafone, which is weighing a US$30 billion-plus bid for AT&T Wireless Services Inc., will launch the data card service next week in the U.K. and Germany, and in Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden over the next four weeks, it said. The company will expand 3G coverage continually to its other markets over the next four years, it added.
Although pricing for the new Mobile Connect service will vary from country to country, Conlon said it will be based on GPRS tariffs and include a premium fee, which she declined to provide. To use the service, customers must pay for a data card, monthly subscription and transmission usage, she said.
German subsidiary Vodafone D2 GmbH said Thursday it will offer customers two pricing options: one based on minutes; the other on data volume. Three different packages for each will be available. The Time XXL package, for instance, offers users 30 hours of connectivity for
