High Speed Internet Access (HSIA): Mobile Internet

Etrade have launched a new application, Etrade Mobile Pro, for mobile share trading via a Blackberry smartphone.

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The Blackberry Bold will be launched in Australia on July 29 and will be available to the public probably in September although there is talk of technical issues so it’s possible these dates may change. It will be available with Telstra, Optus, Vodafone and Three.

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The hype surrounding the iPhone launch has been fascinating. It will be interesting to see whether it was primarily a great marketing success or whether the iPhone filled a gap in the market and will be a catalyst for much broader take up of mobile broadband services.

A couple of surveys in the UK and the US have been conducted recently to see how many people are using mobile broadband and to get some indication of future usage by asking how many people have an interest in mobile broadband. I’m not aware of any similar studies in Australia.

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3 Mobile have not been included in the list of providers who will offer the 3G iPhone. So far Optus, Vodafone and Telstra are the only providers.

3 Mobile have a loyal customer base and have launched a petition on the 3 Mobile blog with the aim of getting Apple to reconsider and allow 3 to offer the iPhone.

The response has been huge with over 1000 comments left on the blog in addition to sms messages of support.

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Telstra will offer the iPhone on July 11th along with Optus and Vodafone. Some pricing details have been announced unlike the silence from the other two carriers. However it doesn’t give the complete picture as it’s still unknown how much data and at what price will be included in the plans.

What we know so far is that the Telstra Next G iPhone plans will start at $30 per month if you pay an up front cost for the iPhone itself, $279 for the 8GB model and $399 for the 16GB model. There are also plans with no up front costs, $80 per month with the 8GB model and from $100 per month for the 16GM model. The contract period for all these plans is 24 months.

The big question is how much data is included on these plans. The iPhone is an Internet device not just a phone so it’s pointless being on a plan which is prohibitively expensive with any reasonable data usage. Telstra’s existing Next G phone plans allow for 5MB of data per month at $2 per MB which doesn’t make sense for the iPhone. So it remains to be seen what the complete pricing picture looks like.

The data allowance will be a major deciding factor when it comes to choosing a mobile provider for the iPhone especially for those in the cities who will have a choice. It’s still the case that Telstra can demand high prices given it’s superior coverage and speed outside of the major metropolitan areas.

If you’re in the market for a new mobile phone then there are some new releases to watch out for with a wave of smartphones featuring touchscreens to compete with the Apple 3g iPhone. The next generate will incorporate 3G access, cameras, games and GPS navigators.

Researcher, IDC have predicted that just under 43% of Australians will be in the market for a new mobile phone this year, the numbers up from last year.

There will be strong demand for the iPhone and much hype around its launch on July 11th but beyond that there are a number of contenders competing for market share in the smartphone space. Strong competition is likely to come from HTC’s Touch Diamond and the Blackberry Bold.

So, Optus and Vodafone will launch the 3g iphone on 11 July and it’s likely that Telstra and 3 mobile will not be far behind.

Both have confirmed that they pre-paid plans will be offered with no contract. This should appeal to the younger target demographic.

It is anticipated that the release will spark a bigger demand in smart phones generally on the back of all the hype.

Prices haven’t been conformed and will probably remain under wraps until shortly before the release.

Features

• broadband mobile access for web surfing and email
• push email
• GPS mapping
• parental control restrictions
• scientific calculator

Battery life

• 10 hours of talk time on 2G networks, 5 hours using 3G
• up to 5 to 6 hours of web browsing
• up to 7 hours for video playback
• up to 24 hours for audio playback

It’s getting closer to the much anticipated launch of the iPhone in Australia. So what’s the latest speculation on dates, features, carriers and costs?

Release Date
Reports today say that the 3G iPhone will be launched on June 9th and will be on sale immediately which means June 10th in Australia. This is supposed to coincide with the opening of the Apple store in Sydney.
My understanding was that the Apple store would open at the end of June and that would be the most likely date for the iPhone release in Australia so there’s still some uncertainty there.

Features
3G functionality
It’s extremely likely that the model released in Australia will be the 3G model. The 3G functionality may be able to be switched on and off due to the power that 3G requires. So it would also work on the 2.5G EDGE network.

Camera
The current iPhone has a mediocre 2 megapixel camera. It’s likely that the new release will feature at least a 3 megapixel camera and geo-tagging.

GPS and Google Maps
It’s likely that the 3G iPhone will incorporate Google Maps for mobile.

Carriers
Vodafone and Optus have confirmed that they will sell the iPhone in Australia so it will be multi-carrier. It’s unknown at this stage whether Telstra and 3 Mobile will be part of it.

Contracts
The rumours are that there will be no contract lock-in so the iPhone will work with any provider. This is good news for pricing and data.