Posts by Ian Fogg from May 07, 2008

IanFogg | May 07, 2008, 11:13 AM
BT Broadband Goes Mobile, Sortof

[updated 15.04 UK time]

BT has just announced that they are bundling a mobile smartphone service as part of their home broadband package. Interestingly, this new bundle will be presented as a new top tier for BT's Total Broadband home DSL, rather than as a mobile tariff.

The name for this service is BT Total Broadband Anywhere (my emphasis). There's a good product here, struggling to get out, but BT's positioning is in danger of putting the product at risk.

BT have built some nice enhancements to the Windows Mobile UI, similar to HTC's efforts. They've extended the BT Digital Vault, Broadband Talk (VOIP), BT Yahoo email and a number of other BT services out onto the mobile phone, where previously they were limited to use at home on BT's DSL.

Most interesting is BT's choice of Windows Mobile and qwerty for a consumer mobile Internet play: This is BT thinking differently from received wisdom in Europe that qwerty == business. I agree, and think there's a place for qwerty on consumer-centric devices here.

But there are devils in the detail: Broadband Talk only works outside the home within WiFi hotspot coverage. Why? Well, while the proposition talks about broadband, the actual mobile service is limited to GPRS speeds -- i.e. narrowband -- and GPRS is too slow for VOIP.

Equally poorly, the service includes just 10Mb of mobile data in the bundle. BT offer an unlimited mobile data bolt-on for UKP 5 per month. Astonishingly, BT appear to offer no higher amount of bundled mobile data across their four mobile tariffs (e.g. BT BB Anywhere 600 vs Anywhere 250 etc.). This compares poorly with the major mobile players who are moving to between 500Mb and 1Gb data on a fair use basis. For example, Vodafone are bundling unlimited 3g mobile Internet as standard for new contract customers. BT must be careful to ensure their use of the term "unlimited" is clearly linked to the 'DSL' part of the bundle and not the 'anywhere' piece.

BT argues that usage of its WiFi hotspot network is sufficient for them to call this broadband anywhere. BT's challenge is that they intend this to be a mass market product, and only savvy early adopter types are going to understand the difference between unlimited use on (the right) public WiFi hotspots, or at home, but not anywhere else.

BT are also limiting their future positioning when they secure a suitable 3g MVNO/roaming tariff. If this service is marketed as broadband, what will a true 3g service be called?