Virgin joins high-speed race

OPTUS' Virgin Mobile is the latest carrier to take a tilt at the burgeoning mobile broadband market, becoming the first to combine voice and internet access in a single price package delivered over a 3G network.

A "virtual" operator using the Optus 3G network, Virgin will today announce two Virgin Broadband plans, with one aimed at home users and one at mobile users with laptops.

Virgin is promising a deluge of advertising to support the launch, which it says will be the largest since the brand kicked off in Australia. But for once, the announcement will not be accompanied by a trademark media stunt by Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Mobile chief executive Matt Davey said.

"We are a little bit more mature and I don't think we need to launch with a huge stunt. This will speak for itself," Mr Davey said.

The Virgin offer is the latest in a spate of affordable mobile-based internet services designed to tempt customers away from fixed-line broadband.

The new "At home" product will include a home phone with unlimited free local and long distance calls, free calls to Virgin mobiles, wireless networking and 4GB of internet access for $60 per month.

While it uses the mobile network to connect calls, the new service would have all the appearances of a conventional home phone, with a "fixed line" number and the ability to use an existing phone, Mr Davey said.

The $80 per month mobile broadband product comes with a Nokia 6120 handset, $520 worth of mobile calls included and 1GB of internet downloads via a free USB modem.

Data speeds on both home and mobile services, which use the high-speed HSDPA network protocol, averaged approximately 512kbps, Mr Davey said.

But peer to peer traffic would be limited to speeds of 64kbps, Mr Davey said, saying the service was not designed for heavy users. However, there were no charges for over-cap use, he said. "We are not rating upload and we are not charging for excess usage. We will just throttle (speeds)."

The recent rash of price cuts on high-speed, 3G-based internet services was sparked by the launch in March of the "X-Series" brand on Hutchison's 3, which brought pricing comparable to fixed line broadband services to the mobile market for the first time.

After the launch of more plans in recent weeks, Hutchison made another pricing move yesterday, launching a very basic $12 per month offer.

Garner analyst Robin Simpson said whether mobile networks would be able to deal with large numbers of data users remained a key question, but one that would only be answered once subscriber numbers grew.

Nevertheless, having "fixed" users on the mobile network could help plan network capacity, he said.

"The roaming mobile user is harder to deal with because you never know where they are going to be. The home users is a bit easier to plan for because you know where they are going to be and can plan accordingly."

The market for 3G internet services was in its early stages worldwide, making it difficult to predict potential growth, he said.