Kevin Russell, CEO of 3UK, has been painting a bright future for the company believing the current financial mayhem will enable it to attract subscribers looking for value. Of particular note was Russell's claim that 600,000 subscribers (30 per cent of its customers base) already were using mobile broadband, and that the company expected more to sign up as consumers looked for better priced deals.
The company, which has a network sharing deal with T-Mobile, said it would have a mobile broadband network comprising over 13,000 sites with a 99 per cent coverage by mid-2010. "This network will provide us with a phenomenal opportunity to reposition our brand and take a real leadership position in data services. Our key focus over the next three, four, five years has to be to leverage that differentiation in data."
To drive this data growth, the company is also focused on promoting the uptake of Facebook, Windows Live Messenger and Skype. "We're seeing a real drive of customers starting to take their Internet behaviour from the home onto mobile," said Russell, adding that September had been the best month for mobile broadband sales as customers switched from using fixed-line services.
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