U.K. carrier 3 sets limits on its new data plan

U.K. carrier 3 made a lot of noise last month with its X Series data package offering [1], which included deals with Google, Slingbox, YouTube, Orb, Skype and others. The obvious missing piece of the offering was the pricetag, which 3 announced today: X-Series subscribers can pay an additional £5 a month on top of their regular voice calls for "unlimited" access to Skype, IM and Internet browsing. On top of that, mobile TV aficionados can enjoy "unlimited" TV via Slingbox for another £10 a month, after buying the £99 Slingbox. The scare quotes around unlimited are purposive: subscribers are allowed 5,000 Skype minutes, 10,000 Windows Live Messenger messages, 80 hours of Orb and Slingbox TV and a mere 1GB of Internet browsing per month. It's a disservice to potential subscribers to call any limited service "unlimited [2]," but most should agree these terms are somewhat generous, semantics aside.

For more on 3's limited data offerings:
- check out this article [3] from IDG News Service