http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,16303202%5E26559%5E%5Enbv%5E1530
6-15320,00.html

Teelstra names 3G date
Chris Jenkins and Stuart Kennedy
AUGUST 18, 2005
TELSTRA is set become the second Australian carrier to switch on a
mainstream third generation mobile phone network for consumers when it
launches the service in September.

Telstra today announced that its 3G network would be available via five
mobile handsets and two capped call plans from September 5.

Video call services would be available in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide,
Perth, Canberra and the Gold Coast. The service's debut would be
accompanied by a major advertising campaign, Telstra consumer and
marketing group managing director David Moffatt said.

The $49 or $79 per month caps will only apply to conventional voice
calls, with email and other content available on packages priced up to
$15 per month.

Video calls are also not included in the capped call plans, but will be
charged at the same rate as a conventional call.

Telstra's i-mode service - licensed through an agreement with Japan's
NTT DoCoMo and already available on Telstra's 2.5G network - will be
the premium brand of the company's 3G data offerings, with its own
"Telstra Active" portal available for owners of non i-mode phones.

The company remains coy about the progress of the existing i-mode
service, refusing to detail subscriber numbers or revenue totals.
Telstra would only say that subscribers are on track to meet targets
set by DoCoMo to guarantee exclusivity.

Telstra said at the launch of the i-mode service in November 2004 that
it needed 1 million subscribers within three years to keep the service
to itself.

Mr Moffatt said that Telstra drew 15 per cent of its mobile revenue
from non-SMS data services and that it had 1 million customers using
mobile data services. The company refused to say what percentage of
those customers would likely migrate to its 3G service over the next 12
months, other than to say the number would be "significant".

Telstra refused to comment specifically on the revenue generated by its
current data services, but said its results at least matched the $16
per subscriber announced by rival Hutchison in its results this week.

Telstra already has a 3G network using the CDMA-based EV-DO standard,
but the network is data only and does not carry voice traffic at
present. Nevertheless, its ability to cover greater distances than the
GSM-based 3G network would see it become the major third generation
service carrier for regional areas, Telstra said.

The company's earlier attempt to describe its 1xRTT network as a third
generation service met with a poor reception, as did the failed $50
million "Loop" content service that it carried.

Taking spectrum and licensing costs into account, Telstra had thus far
spent just under $1.2 billion on 3G services. The costs include a $450
million radio network sharing agreement with 3G early starter
Hutchison, which operates the 3-branded service.

Of the other carriers, Vodafone is trialling its 3G service and Optus
has launched a limited Canberra-only network.

It will be interesting to see if Telstra's Caps are competitive...
Cheers