To lift sales of its high-speed wireless data cards, T-Mobile, Europe’s second-largest cellphone operator after Vodafone, is planning to package the cards in a sleek, new wrapper: a laptop computer made by Fujitsu Siemens.
T-Mobile will sell the laptops, equipped with built-in data cards that will get subscribers access to T-Mobile’s third-generation wireless network, at T-Punkt retail shops in Germany. With such a 3G data card plugged in, a computer can use the mobile phone airwaves to link to the Internet wherever there is a cell signal.
Ramona Stahl, a T-Mobile spokeswoman, would not confirm a report in the German business magazine Capital that the computers would sell for just E100, or $120, compared with a standard retail price of E1,000 to E3,000. She said T-Mobile had not yet determined the price. But as with most mobile phones sold in Europe, the price of the laptops will be subsidized by the carrier, she said.
Where do I have to stand to get in line?
While I haven’t seen nothing of the sort here in Portugal, the PCMCIA data cards themselves are being sold by 100 euros – they cost some 300 euros before, Some plans have unlimited bandwidth usage from 1AM to 7AM, and 10 gigs at other hours. One operator gives unlimited from 7AM to 5 PM! Speed is quite nice, although not up to good cable access speeds.
I really hope the operators start giving the cards away, even if that entails some fidelization contract – no problem. But I doubt we’ll be having inexpensive laptops… Not in Portugal, where operators will rather sell one unit at 2000 euros than 10000 units at 20 euros…
That sounds like a great idea for consumers and carriers. Carriers clearly make more money on the service than the cards. Consumers, once exposed to the service will realize what they’ve been missing.