Vodafone launches 3G broadband

Vodafone said today it will next month launch 3G broadband services at a price competitive with Telecom's fixed line service.

The service will run ten times faster than its previous offering at a speed of up to 3.6 megabits per second -- faster than conventional broadband running over a copper wire. The average speed will be 800kbps-1.4Mbps, 58 times faster than dial-up and considerably faster than most entry level conventional broadband services.

Vodafone NZ chief executive Russell Stanners said the big advantage for customers is the system is mobile.

The company said that mobile connectivity would quickly become the preferred way of accessing the internet and critical business applications.

Prices will be $29.95 per month for 200MB of data traffic or $49.95 for 1GB. The service may not be suitable for customers wanting to download large volumes of data.

Mr Stanners said the good news was this development did not rely on unbundling the local loop, which will not come to fruition until mid-2007.

Although Vodafone has around half the mobile market, he said it only had around 20 per cent of the total telecommunications market and the scope for growth was enormous.

- NZPA