Telecom calls up Android support

The LG Mobile GW620 will be available to XT customers from next Thursday. Photo / Supplied

Telecom is talking up the arrival of the first Google-powered phone on its XT mobile network, a sign it is ready to reignite its marketing efforts after the network's embarrassing outages in the past few months.

Electronics company LG will next week become the second mobile phone maker to launch a handset based on Google's increasingly popular Android operating system into the local market.

The device will only be available on XT and is not being sold by Telecom's major rival, Vodafone.

Last year Vodafone launched the first Android device on to the local market: the HTC Magic. It said in February it had sold out of the devices.

Telecom will begin selling LG Mobile's GW620 smartphone to XT customers next Thursday. The phone will retail for $699 and is the first Android-based device to be sold by Telecom.

Telecom's head of device management, Graham Gordon, said in a statement the company was excited about the launch of an Android operating system phone on its XT network.

"The LG GW620 is a great starting point that will captivate the avid mobile social networker and we look forward to more exciting phones to be released on this platform in coming months," he said.

Telecom's plan to boost its share of the mobile market after the launch of its new 3G XT network was thrown into disarray by the technical issues that have plagued the new network since December.

While it did not specify numbers, Vodafone said this week it had received a "huge" influx of customers from Telecom as a result of the problems experienced by XT users.

Telecom and Alcatel-Lucent, the technology company which built XT, have spent millions of dollars this year improving the network.

Promoting a unique line-up of handsets will be one strategy Telecom uses to market XT once it is convinced it has ironed out the technical issues.

Pushing the Android platform makes sense for the company, especially since it has been unable to secure an agreement with Apple to sell its popular iPhone directly to XT customers.

Google's decision to develop its own mobile operating system, and make it available to handset makers, has given it a powerful foothold into the mobile market.

Google predicts a growing slice of its global revenue will be generated through mobile devices as phone users spend more time accessing the internet while away from their desk-top computers and laptops.

The Android operating system has generally been well received by industry critics.

The most obvious difference between mobile phones running Android and other handsets is that Android phones often feature a Google search bar on the home screen.

Android phones link directly to Google Maps, the company's mobile navigation application, as well as other Google services.

They can also offer voice search, the ability to speak a search query rather than having to type it into Google.

Telecom's promotion of the LG GW620 has underwhelmed local Android enthusiasts, however, because the phone runs on an older version of the Google operating system.