Hutchison Whampoa, which owns mobile company 3 Ireland, has launched a new service that offers unlimited broadband access for a flat fee on mobile phones.
Up to, mobile operators have charged per minute for broadband use. The service will be available in the UK from the start of December, and in Ireland early next year.
The company said customers would be able to make unlimited calls from their mobile using Skype, watch their home television via their mobile, access their home PC and have unlimited access to internet and messaging services from Yahoo!, Windows Live Messenger and Google.
3 Ireland managing director Robert Finnegan did not disclose the price of the new service to Irish customers, but said it would be 'very competitive', not only against mobile operators, but also against fixed line operators.
He added that, from February 2007, when it has finished upgrading its network, it would offer Irish customers broadband speed of 3.6mb per second.
Speaking today at a launch in London, Canning Fok, MD of Hutchison Whampoa, said that fixed cost mobile broadband was the natural next step for mobile services.
3 Ireland, which launched on the Irish mobile services market last year, operates one of Ireland's 3G mobile phone licences. It plans to open 28 Irish stores by the end of next year.
