Vodafone to launch new generation of services next month
By Dan Sabbagh
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VODAFONE yesterday became the first of Britain's four mobile operators to set a commercial launch date for the introduction of faster internet services to mobile phones.
The company said that it would introduce the service, called General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), to business customers from April 2. However, it will not be available to the general public until the summer. GPRS allows internet surfing at about four times the speed of existing mobile internet phones.
It also maintains a permanent connection to the internet, so that mobile surfers do not have to log on every time they want to use the Net. Until now, the launch of GPRS has dogged by technological delays. In particular, manufacturers have not been able to produce GPRS compatible phones in commercial quantities.
Vodafone said yesterday that it had solved that problem. A spokesman said: "We believe that we will have sufficient quantities of the phones available to meet early demand." However, the company did not say how many it had obtained. Unusually, GPRS users will not pay by the second but by the amount of data they download.
Subscribers will pay a supplement to their voice phone bill starting at £15, excluding VAT, a month. This will allow users to download an initial amount of data for free but usage in excess of this amount will be charged at between £2.90 and £1 per megabyte of data sent and received.
The first phones will be supplied by American manufacturer Motorola and are expected to be priced at around £100 including VAT. Phones from the world's largest manufacturer, Nokia, are not expected to be available in large quantities until the final quarter of this year.
Separately, Vodafone announced that it had agreed terms with France Telecom over the remaining payments due to it from the sale of mobile operator Orange. The terms price Orange at £22.5 billion in cash - a reduction of £2.5 billion on the £25.1 billion sale value at the time France Telecom acquired Orange last May.
At the time, Vodafone accepted £13.8 billion in cash and shares which were then worth £11.3 billion. However, the subsequent fall in France Telecom's share price reduced the value of the share portion to £8.76 billion |
