Staff Reporter

On the top floor of T-Mobiles luxurious waterfront offices in Hammersmith West London the networks great and good gathered. Among the executives were departing UK chief executive Harris Jones international chief executive Rene Obermann and international chief marketing officer Nikesh Arora assembled for what Obermann described as a special day in the history of T-Mobile.

With it being almost a year since the start of the rebranding exercise that saw T-Mobile replace One 2 One Obermann reflected on the networks successes before moving on to its plan for the immediate future. This according to Obermann is to push wide open the door to the mass market for T-Mobile multi-media.

Central to this is the Europe-wide expansion of the networks t-zone portals for multi-media (essentially T-Mobiles equivalent of the Vodafone Vizzavi and live! proposition).

From mid-April T-Mobile will offer a vastly improved multi-media services via t-zone portals to almost all its European customers. Already in January this year the network has attracted 2.2 million visitors to the portals.

At present the t-zones are updated around three times a day. Arora said that by April they will be updated around 30 times a day.

Other improvements will be to handset usability. From April everything will be ready to use from the box with the right price and the right usability said Arora.

Obermann added: The success of mobile data services depends not only on having exciting content and devices but offering the right tariffs.

According to Obermann the new tariff prices for GPRS will be up to 70 per cent cheaper than T-Mobiles current offering.

The tariffs have often been cited as an obstacle to the acceptance of data services. Although we saw things rather differently we have decided to sharply reduce the prices charged for using mobile data services making these extremely attractive for both consumers and business users.

In doing so we are pursuing our vision of making mobile multi-media applications available to as many people as possible at affordable prices.

The drive to stimulate mobile data is to be backed by a marketing campaign. This will kick-off in the first week of April. The campaign will feature new services an improved user experience and new handsets.

Arora highlighted five key elements identified by T-Mobile in the push to expand data services. These were usability new services partnerships mass-market tariffs and advertising activity.

To improve usability T-Mobile is introducing three new handsets. These will be enhanced with soft access keys to give users instant access to the t-zones – much like the Vodafone live! soft-keys. Later on users will be able to download their own icons and interfaces to create their own personal interface.

Arora says T-Mobile will only brand handsets if it adapts them to accept further services. The first handsets to meet this requirement will be introduced in April and are the Nokia 3650 the Samsung V200 and the Panasonic GD87. The network promises more handsets during the rest of the year.

Arora says new services will focus around three core components: infotainment; entertainment and messaging. T-Mobile also claims it will be first to market with video messaging while video downloads are also being added to the messaging service portfolio.

Another new service revolves around two new entertainment channels. The network announced partnerships with Universal Mobile the mobile subsidiary of Universal Music and MTV mobile. In both cases T-Mobile will use the agreements to offer musical content across the t-zone portals in major European markets. Users will be able to download the latest international and local polyphonic ring tones and logos as well as send songs as a greeting. In future users will be able to access video clips from Universal Mobile and view chart releases via MMS.

Other partnerships announced last week include Cambridge-based 3G LABS for customising handset interfaces and Research in Motion to bring the first consumer version of the highly successful BlackBerry device.

T-Mobile will use a 70 per cent reduction in GPRS prices to push data services. We believe our new pricing levels coupled with the exciting services we plan to offer will play a significant role in accelerating the adoption rates of mobile data said Obermann.

We are pricing mobile data for mass-market uptake and we are setting new standards for price transparency.

The price reductions are set to begin in Germany from mid-April and then roll out across Europe. Exact pricing of the new tariffs will be announced at CeBIT.

Arora concluded: The shaping of the mobile data market is a marathon not a sprint. We have developed critical mass in the past two years and we have been cautiously optimistic and above all sensible. Our partnership approach with a consumer-centred strategy will ensure we are the market makers and shapers. All pre-requisites are in place – the industry is ready for the acceleration in take-up of data services.

I have always said that I would leave any job straight away if I stopped being happy he said. The split with Intec was perfectly friendly and I wish them all the best. I just felt I had done all I could and it was time for a fresh challenge.

Priced at 179 with contract the S100 has a 65000-colour display a modem for fax transfers vibrating alert T9 predictive text input smart messaging (EMS) and organiser functions

Technical problems forced Garmin to delay the NavTalk handset from Q4 2001. The specification was upgraded and mapping software improved.

The NavTalk finally went on sale in Europe this month. UK versions will not ship until April until new UK mapping software is ready.

Garmin head of cellular sales Peter Hawkins said: We will be shipping at the end of the month. We have been waiting for some enhanced mapping software that will offer better navigation to end users. The handset is shipping in Denmark Germany France Italy Switzerland and Holland.

NavTalk users can send their GPS locations to each other and to location-based service companies. This could be invaluable in emergencies.

Garmin is in talks with networks and handset distributors with plans to ship products to retailers and independent dealers. The handset price has been set at 499 (plus VAT). The final price depends on network subsidy levels.

Hawkins claims Garmins pedigree in producing GPS devices will give it an edge over rivals such as Benefon which launched a similar handset with GPS navigation capabilities. This has failed to sell in any real volumes in the UK.

We know how to integrate GPS into a mobile phone and keep battery consumption low claimed Hawkins.

According to financial figures for 2002 released last week Oranges UK contract customer base increased 13 per cent to 4.2 million customers at the end of 2002. Contract customers accounted for over half the total growth during the year.

The pre-pay base increased five per cent during the year to more than nine million customers compared with 8.6 million in 2001.

For the first time ever Orange UK said it achieved a consistent increase in annual average customer revenues during the year and it is now enjoying the benefits of its maturing customer base.

Overall average revenue per user (ARPU) increased 5.7 per cent during 2002 to 259. Within this the average ARPU for both the contract and pre-pay bases increased as did the contribution from both voice usage and non-voice services. Contract ARPU was 557 for the year ( 544 in 2001) while pre-pay ARPU increased from 121 to 125 having passed inflection after Q1 2002.

The voice element of average revenues increased 2.3 per cent to 222 in 2002 while the contribution from non-voice services increased 32 per cent to 37 in 2002.

Non-voice revenues contributed 64 per cent of the growth in overall ARPU.

Orange UKs total revenues increased 12 per cent to 4094 million. Churn fell to 17.5 per cent (2001: 18.4 per cent) with contract churn at 15.5 per cent and pre-pay churn at 18.8 per cent.

Average usage rose during the year to 140 minutes per month (from 138 in 2001) with the contract base averaging 326 minutes and the pre-pay base 56 minutes per month.

The average cost of acquiring new customers increased to 120 in 2002 reflecting the increased focus on higher-value contract segments.

Average contract acquisition cost increased to 254 in 2002 (from 214 in 2001). Pre-pay acquisition costs dropped to 14 in 2002 following a reduction in the level of handset subsidies offered and a higher proportion of SIM card-only connections.

The job has gone to Scott Thomas previously a sales director at Argos Group e-commerce acquisition Jungle.com where he oversaw sales across multiple channels such as retail outfits business-to-business routes and online services.

Thomass main task will be to replicate the retail success of Phones 4U online.

The body will provide their customers with a multi-network commonly branded solution for making payments using their handsets.

Orange T-Mobile and Vodafone along with Spains Telefonica Moviles said the alliance will enable customers across Europe to securely buy digital or physical goods using their handsets.

3 Debitel KPN Mobile Group O2 and TMN have also expressed an interest in joining.

The alliance hopes to establish an industry standard that will enable merchants and operators to press on with the roll-out of more mobile payment-enabled services.

Mobile payments or m-payments have already been trialled with varying degrees of success. Companies hope to use the technology to drive sales of low-ticket products which are priced so as to preclude credit card payments.

The history of the mobile phone industry shows that major business volumes only came when customers had the freedom to reach across and interact with any network said Tim Jones newly-appointed chiefexecutive officer of the Mobile Payment Services Association which will be based in London.

Jones has held a number of senior executive positions including chief executive of retail banking at National Westminster Bank.

He also co-founded and headed the now-defunct Mondex electronic cash initiative within National Westminster Bank.

The claim was made at the EDGE Operators Forum (EOF) in New Orleans last week. The EOF said that many European operators are evaluating EDGE or enhanced data rates for GSM as a complementary or alternative technology to 3G because of its low cost of deployment and technical efficiency.

The EOF claimed that those deploying EDGE can increase data speeds to three times those achievable over GPRS for around to $1-$2 per subscriber without the need for a 3G licence.

Motorola Nokia and Sony Ericsson all announced EDGE products at the 3GSM World Congress.

Call.Saver claims to offer 20 per cent cheaper calls from fixed lines to mobiles and 250 inclusive off-peak minutes. The service is being sold only in The Link for 12 months. One.Tel has no plans to offer similar packages through any other retailer.

Link MD Nick Wood commented: We have been selling fixed-line phones longer than The Carphone Warehouse. It is an incremental profit opportunity for The Link because 70 per cent of our customers are on BT.

He added: This is a better value offering than Talk Talk.

The new tariff will be promoted by the biggest advertising campaign Virgin Mobile has undertaken.

A 5 million ad campaign started last week on cinema TV and radio and in the press.

The main TV commercial is set in an old eastern European hospital where bored patients use their thumbs to make a nuisance of themselves by pressing light switches on and off and playing pranks on other patients. The ad closes with the line The Devil makes work for idle thumbs. Keep yours busy. Text another Virgin mobile for only 3p.

Texting is phenomenally popular with the young with whom Virgin is already a well-loved brand said Virgin founder Richard Branson.

We want to reward those customers for the support that has made Virgin Mobile the number one network for texters in the UK.