Virgin Mobile shows lack of interest in 3G

March 20, 2005

UK based paper, The Guardian, reported that Virgin Mobile has shown lack of interest in rolling out 3G service because of insufficient interest shown by the British consumers.

The company was involved with the UK 3G auction back in April 2000 but pulled out as the average price of the license was over US$6 billion.

Virgin Mobile does not have its own mobile network. It has a contact to use T-Mobile's network to provide mobile phone services. The contact also includes a deal to offer 3G services like video calling.

Virgin Mobile is expected to launch 3G this summer on a limited rollout to test the market.

Early 3G launches from Vodafone and Orange were limited to certain areas in the UK and users could only access the high-speed network using PC data cards.

Vodafone launched 3G services on April 2004 and have signed up fewer than 200,000 customers.

3UK, which was awarded UK's beast network for 2004, rolled out 3G service in March 2003 and have over 1 million customers.