T-Mobile takes aim at mobile internet

T-Mobile has unveiled its Web'n'Walk mobile data service

T-Mobile has launched its mobile data service and is aiming to bring broadband speeds to handsets next year.

The 'Web'n'Walk' service, or for business customers 'Office in your pocket', allows access to 2G, 3G and Wi-Fi services.

T-Mobile will offer three tariffs, at £30, £38 and £55 a month for 100, 200 and 400 call minutes respectively. The service also offers 40MB of data downloads with additional data costing £1 per megabyte.

"In the past, the mobile industry has sold a limited form of internet access which has been slow, difficult and expensive to use," said Rene Obermann, group chief executive at T-Mobile.

"The industry should not try to create a new type of internet. It should give customers the same internet they already have - but mobile - and ensure that it works in the same way as it does on their PC."

T-Mobile had five handsets available at launch, all preconfigured for internet access and using Google as the start page. The company has also claimed that the phones are configured to show most regular web pages normally, rather than cut down mobile versions.

T-Mobile will turn on a High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) network next year that will provide download rates of up to 1.8Mbps. The operator claimed that the average download speed for home fixed line broadband ranges from under 264KB to 1MB.

"We will radically increase 3G capacity and speeds," said Hamid Akhavan, group chief technical officer at T-Mobile.

"Next year, we will launch HSDPA to deliver speeds over four times faster than today's 3G up to a theoretical 1.8MB a second, then faster."