3 (telecommunications)
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| Hutchison 3G, Three, 3 | |
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| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | |
| Headquarters | Hong Kong, People's Republic of China others locations includes UK, Italy, Australia, Republic of Ireland, Denmark |
| Key people | Canning Kin-ning FOK |
| Industry | Mobile Telecommunications |
| Parent | Hutchison Whampoa (public) |
| Website | www.three.com |
3 is a 3G operator in Hong Kong, Europe (containing majority of operations) and Australia, owned by Hutchison Whampoa, a well-known Hong Kong company. Hutchison Whampoa, through its subsidiaries and associated companies, holds 3G licences in Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, the UK and markets its services under the global brand 3. As of August 2006, registered 3 customers worldwide numbered more than 13.5 million. 3 aggressively markets new handsets and services and launches many new products each year, lately focussing on Mobile TV related services. As with other 3G networks around the world, 3 allows video calling and fast Internet access from most of its handsets.
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[edit] 3 worldwide
[edit] Australia
3 launched its Australian services on April 15, 2003 in Sydney and Melbourne. Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and the Gold Coast were activated in early June 2003, with coverage later extended to Canberra in 2005, and in 2006 many major regional centres including Geelong, Frankston and Wollongong, bringing 3's network to cover approximately 55% of Australia's population. In areas not covered by 3's 3G network, customers roam on Telstra's GSM/GPRS/EDGE network. This agreement allows 3 to offer coverage to up to 96% of the population. 3's total number of Australian subscribers exceeded 1,300,000 as of December 2006. The company has mobile stores in all the cities they provide coverage for, as well as a dealership agreement with Allphones to sell their products in their stores.
[edit] Switch from Orange
On February 1, 2006, Hutchison's Australian CDMA network, which operated under the Orange brand name, was rebranded as 3 CDMA. The 3 CDMA network is now closed as of August 9, 2006, with all customers either moved over to 3's 3G network or to other network providers. 3 CDMA customers were offered special tariffs and incentives to continue as customers on the 3G network.
[edit] Hong Kong
In May 2004, its affiliated 2G operator Orange rebranded its services and changed its name to "3 Dualband", referring to the GSM product, and "3 CDMA", referring to the CDMA product.
[edit] Republic of Ireland
3 has a licence for operation in the Republic of Ireland, and has been assigned the access code 083. The service was launched on July 26, 2005. 3's coverage is made up of two kinds of service area: a rapidly expanding 3G video service area which currently covers over 80% of the population and a national voice and text service area (2G/2.5G) provided by Vodafone Ireland that covers 99.5% of the population. They initially offered a "bill pay" service only but in May 16, 2006 they announced the introduction of a pre-paid service knows as 3Pay.
On 15 October 2006 3 Ireland announced they would have 28 3 stores opened by the end of 2007 and 8 opened by the end of 2006 with the first being built in Patrick Street in Cork and their anchor store in Dublin as well as a store in Waterford. Stores in Limerick and Galway are expected to follow around the same time.
[edit] United Kingdom
The 3 service was launched in the UK on 3 March 2003 (3/3/3). After 32 months of operations, 3 acquired 3.2 million UMTS customers, more than the other UK mobile operators combined. In 2003, 3 launched the UK’s first video mobile network to bring new and better services to the mobile media market. Given 3G was a new technology, 3 undertook one of the fastest network rollouts in UK history and met their licence regulatory requirements three years ahead of schedule. 3 has a roaming agreement with O2 which allows its customers to use their handsets on the 2G network when they move out of 3G coverage. Between 2006 and 2007, 3's roaming partner will change to Orange, to provide a wider range of services to its customers who aren't within 3's own 3G coverage area[1]
At the end of 2005, 3 UK had nearly 4 million customers on its network and was the largest 3G network in the UK with more 3G subscribers than all the other networks together. The UK offers both pre- and post-pay (contract) services.
3 has used a number of different TV, print and radio advertising campaigns since their launch. Their current slogan is "Welcome to our Network".
[edit] UK Retail
3's first retail stores (ThreeStores) opened at the same time as the network launched, on Oxford Street and High Street Kensington, both in London, and at the Birmingham Mailbox.
3 has an agreement with Superdrug, which stocks exclusively 3's mobile phones. Many Superdrug stores also host a ThreePoint, a separately-staffed, glass-walled kiosk. This agreement came about after Superdrug was purchased by Watson's, a large Asian retailer also owned by Hutchison Whampoa.
3's handsets and contracts are also sold by mobile telephony chains and independents throughout the UK, as well as online retailers.
In October 2005, the second wave of ThreeStores opened in larger malls throughout the UK, such as the Harlequin shopping centre in Watford, the Bluewater shopping centre, and The Mall in Bristol Cribbs Causeway. These stores are now 3's flagship highstreet shops.
On October 24, 2006, 3 announced that it had purchased 95 high street shops from O2, 274 The Link outlets, and 22 shops branded under the O2 banner. 3 announced that these would be rebranded as ThreeStores "within weeks", in time for the important Christmas season.
[edit] Customer Content
3 launched SeeMeTV at the end of 2005, allowing its customers to submit their own video content that other subscribers could watch. Users pay a small micropayment (the price decided by the video's creator) to watch these videos. The user who created the videos will get paid 10% of the amount of money that is paid by other users to watch the video. This service does allow some adult content, but this is protected by a PIN to prevent minors accessing it. Users are paid once they have made £10 using PayPal. It is the most popular user-generated mobile service created - since launch there have been over four million downloads of videoclips and it is set to be launched through MSN Spaces.
[edit] Internet Access
Hutchison 3G UK and also Hutchison 3G Ireland initially made the decision to block direct Internet access from handsets. The result of this decision was that, unlike the UK's other leading networks, arbitrary web and email servers could not be accessed from a handset on their network. Instead, they provided their own web-based content through the handset's online portal, offering popular video and text content, ranging from video news bulletins to online dating systems. Unlike standard GPRS content, 3's portal is 'free to browse'; the user pays a fixed price for each video or application downloaded. This system became known, somewhat unaffectionately, as the "walled garden" by many of 3's power users, frustrated at not being able to access the sites they wanted.
This policy was relaxed in September 2005, and customers were permitted restricted Internet access to a limited selection of third-party websites; those that 3 tested and deemed suitable and usable. It was also possible for customers to submit sites for consideration. Customers who required full Internet access, or who wanted to use their handsets as a modem, were able to purchase fixed amounts of data transfer for a fee.
In the latter half of 2006, 3 decided to relax their policy on Internet access further by providing 30MB web access to new customers free of charge. It's worth noting that this only allows access to sites using port 80, thus access to external email accounts, such as POP3 and IMAP4 mailboxes, and access to services which don't use port 80, is not allowed with the inclusive data.
In Australia, since the launch of the network, 3 has configured its customers' handsets with two data access modes (APNs), "3Services" and "3NetAccess". Through a change in the settings on the handset, the wider Internet is available to browse. Customers on most tariffs pay AUD$4 per megabyte. A new add-on to regular plans (not pre-paid) is now available, offering 10MB of data when in 3 Broadband Zones. Extra usage is charged at $0.50 per megabyte, and any usage outside of 3's Broadband Zones (ie. roaming on Telstra's 2.5G network) incurs a fee of $1.65 per megabyte, regardless of whether the initial 10MB is used.
In 2004, 3 released a PCMCIA 3G Data Card for Windows-based laptops which allows Internet access through 3's network directly from the computer, accompanied by a range of data and business tariffs.
In Italy under the option "Naviga 3" for 9 € per month video mobile owners can navigate on internet up to 5MB per day. After that edge the connection costs 60 cents per megabyte.
On 16 November 2006, Hutchison Whampoa Limited announced the global launch of the X-Series from 3 with a webcast presentation live from London which featured leaders and managers from their major partners Skype, Sling Media, Yahoo!, Nokia, Google, eBay, Microsoft, Orb and Sony Ericsson.
"The X-Series from 3 marks the beginning of the internet via mobile broadband, and heralds a new way of doing business for mobile network operators [...] Customers will be able to make unlimited calls from their mobile using Skype, watch their home television via their mobile using Sling, access their home PC remotely using Orb and have access to the best of internet and messaging services from Yahoo!, Windows Live Messenger and Google."
Sharon Baylay, General Manager, Microsoft Online Services Group UK, said: "Already, in the UK alone, 3 users are having one million Windows Live Messenger conversations every day. These are exciting numbers and mobile broadband will bring a rapid shift in the delivery of internet services, and consumers' usage of them. This announcement shows Microsoft at the forefront of the mobile broadband revolution and we will continue to roll out 'anywhere access' to our leading web services."
X-Series was launched in the UK on December 1, 2006 and will be launched in 3's other markets in early 2007.
[edit] Move to Orange GSM
3 currently use O2 to provide their 2.5G GSM coverage in areas where they have not yet covered in their 3G blanket. A change will happen in early 2007 when 3 will switch to Orange for their GSM provider.
[edit] Italy
In Italy, 3 was the first mobile operator to offer 3G services (UMTS). As of January 2006, 3 Italia had 5.9 million registered customers, thus being the local leader in the 3G telecommunications market. It has a roaming agreement with TIM which allows its customers to get a 2G service when they move out of 3G coverage. On February 22, 2006, 3 announced the first launch of (HSDPA) technology in Italy, with initial coverage of Rome. The HSDPA service, which provides wireless broadband access with speed up to 14.4 Megabit/s, has been initially launched offering connection speeds up to 1.8 Megabit/s. The service has been called ADSM (as a contraction for ADSL Mobile). On May 14, 2006 3 was the 1st in Italy to launch the Digital Mobile TV with the DVB-H technology (70% of population); this service is currently available only with two mobile models LG U900 & Samsung SGH-P910.
[edit] Ownership
[edit] Australia
- Hutchison Telecommunications (Australia) Limited: 80.1%[2]
- Telecom NZ: 19.9%
In turn, Hutchison Telecommunications (Australia) Limited's ownership is made up of:
- Hutchison Whampoa: 57.82%
- Public shareholders: 29.66%
- Leanrose Pty Limited: 12.52%
[edit] Austria
- Hutchison Whampoa: 100%
[edit] Denmark, Sweden
- Hutchison Whampoa: 60%
- Investor AB: 40%
[edit] Italy
- Hutchison Whampoa: 91.6%
- NHS Investments (San Paolo IMI): 7%
- Rizzoli Corriere della Sera Mediagroup: 0.9%
- Gemina: 0.5%
- 3G Mobile Investments (Franco Bernabè): 0.0003%
[edit] Hong Kong, Macau
- Hutchison Whampoa: 71%
- NTT DoCoMo: 24%
- NEC: 5%
[edit] United Kingdom
- Hutchison Whampoa: 100% (20% and 15% equity interests were re-purchased from NTT DoCoMo and KPN Mobile respectively in 2005).
[edit] Ireland
- Hutchison Whampoa: 100%
[edit] References
- ^ "3 selects Orange as new national roaming partner", 2006-05-10. Retrieved on 2006-05-10.
- ^ 3 Community relations. Retrieved on November 21, 2006.
[edit] External links
[edit] Parent Company
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| Cheung Kong Holdings | Hutchison Whampoa | Hongkong Electric | Cheung Kong Life Sciences | TOM Group |
