3 to make mobile email affordable

CELEBRATING THE FACT that it made mobile broadband affordable a year ago today with its £10 Pay-as-you-go tariff, 3 aims to do the same thing for mobile email and surfing.

The UK 3G network operator reckons that for a mere £2.50 a month, customers will be able to access personal email - including all attachments.

The service is handset based which is probably why the company can offer the attachment facility. The INQ reckons that once 3G dongle owners are offered the same service they'll sign up in their droves. No more worries about how many megabytes they are consuming a month.

Talking of megabytes, the price includes 10 MB of web surfing, too. Plus there's a £5 per month version aimed at business users which will enable them to access corporate email.

The list of mail servers apparently includes both Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes and for the money they also get 1 GB of web browsing.

The service should be available from September 10^th [2008]. The INQ has checked and the offer appears to cover regular POP3 mailboxes not just a 3 mailbox but it is currently restricted to handsets.

The INQ wonders what would happen if you were to put the SIM from such a handset inside a 3G dongle? It might just work.

Talking of which, this hack has been trying to source a 3G Pay-as-you-go SIM via Ebay and has apparently been sold a pup.

The invoice says it is a 3G mobile broadband SIM but it's just a boring old PAYG voice SIM. So beware and buy from a company which answers its phones. µ