TELECOMS & MOBILE
BT to re-enter the mobile market
01-10-2002
by
One year after spinning off its wireless arm, UK telecoms giant BT has said it will re-enter the mobile communications market after signing a deal with mmO2.
Although BT says it is not comfortable with the classification, it will effectively operate as an MVNO, or Mobile Virtual Network Operator, which means it will buy and resell airtime from a mobile operator that owns a physical network. The mobile network that BT will use is in fact owned by mmO2, British Telecom's former subsidiary that was de-merged from the group last year.
The company's new service is called Mobile Sense, and it will be an entirely on-line operation designed for heavy mobile users who do not have the time or inclination to buy phones, call plans or additional services from retail shops, a BT spokesperson told ElectricNews.Net.
The firm said that a table of pricing options on BT's Web site, BT.com, will enable customers to pick a suitable package based on the number of minutes they spend calling landlines and other mobile phones and the number of text messages they send. BT.com currently has over 2 million registered users.
In addition, 12 types of handset will be sold on the site, and all monthly billing for BT's new mobile services will be handled via direct debit. New handsets ordered through the service will be delivered within 48 hours.
"Mobile Sense is not a mass-market offering, but it does represent a practical and low-risk first step into the consumer mobile space," said Pierre Danon, chief executive officer of BT Retail. "I have said previously that we would not enter the consumer mobile sector unless we had something which brought a new dimension to this already competitive market."
"This is an opportunity with high potential for BT, from which we are expecting to generate the majority of the targeted STG44 million of consumer and other new mobility revenues by 2004/2005," Danon added.
The company spokesperson said that while it would be possible to extend the service to Ireland through BT and mmO2's subsidiaries here, namely Esat BT and O2 Ireland respectively, he said it was not likely that Mobile Sense would launch in the Republic in the short term.
The fact that BT is running the consumer-facing side of the operation entirely through its Web site should keep costs down. BT has also hyped that fact that the on-line nature of the service will let customers check the details of their account.
Using the subject line to get noticed: Denise Cox argues that to get results you have to make every word work in a subject line.
