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3 (telecommunications)

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Logo of 3
3 is a mobile phone operator in Europe, Australia, Hong Kong and Israel, owned by Hutchison Whampoa. 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 the year 2006, registered 3 customers worldwide were more than 10 million.

In the UK, the 3 Network adverts star little characters called Critters. Their catchphrase is "Welcome to our Network."

Contents

3 worldwide

An advertisement for 3 in which Leon Lai, a Hong Kong-based Cantopop singer is the pinup.
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An advertisement for 3 in which Leon Lai, a Hong Kong-based Cantopop singer is the pinup.

Australia

3 launched its Australian services on April 15, 2003 in Sydney and Melbourne. Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and the Gold Coast were then activated in early June 2003. Outside of the 3G zone, 3's customers previously roamed onto the Vodafone GSM network. This roaming agreement ended July 30, 2005, when 3 switched roaming partners to Telstra. Through this agreement 3 offers coverage to 96% of Australia's population. Total 3 Australia subscribers were 1,000,000+ as of June, 2006.

Switch from Orange

On February 1st 2006, Hutchinson's Australian CDMA network, which operated under the Orange brand name, was rebranded as 3 CDMA. With no initial changes apart from a rebranding of the network, the plan is to move all of the 3 CDMA customers to the 3 network. It was announced on May 9, 2006 that the 3 CDMA network will be shut down on August 9, 2006.

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.

Ireland

3 has a licence for operation in 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 72% 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 mobile telephone service.

United Kingdom

The 3 service was launched in the UK on 3rd March 2003 (3/3/3). It has a roaming agreement with O2 which allows its customers to get a 2G service when they move out of 3G coverage. At the end of 2005, 3 UK had nearly 4 million customers on its network and is 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. In the UK, 3 has an agreement with Superdrug, which exclusively stocks 3's mobile phones. Many Superdrug stores have a small section set aside as a 3 shop. This agreement came about after Superdrug was purchased by Watson's, a large Asian retailer owned by Hutchison Whampoa. 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 number 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 4 m downloads of videoclips and it is about to be launched through spaces.msn.com.

Italy

In Italy, 3 was the first mobile operator to offer 3G services (UMTS). As of Jan 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 available only with the mobile model LG U900.

Ownership

Denmark, Sweden

Italy

Hong Kong, Macau

United Kingdom

Internet access

3 in the UK made the decision to block direct Internet access from subscribers on their network. The result of this decision is that arbitrary web and email servers could not be accessed from a handset on their network. Instead, they provided their own web-based content under a, "Free to browse," policy where much of content is pay per view or subscription based. This became know as the "walled garden" by many of 3's customers. The policy has since changed: customers are now permitted restricted Internet access to a limted selection of websites (around 200), at speeds of up to 384 kbit/s, although the service incurs a monthly fee. It's possible to submit sites for consideration although there is no guarantee that it will be added to the list of available websites

Three have just recently released a 3G Data Card for laptops which saves the hassle of connecting your phone to the computer. The card should be featured on [link] once the site is updated.

References

External links

Ownership


UK mobile phone companies
T-Mobile | Vodafone | O2 | Orange | 3
Mobile Virtual Network Operators:
BT Mobile | easyMobile | Fresh Mobile | M&S Mobile
Mobile World | TalkTalk | Tesco Mobile | Virgin Mobile

 

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