Oslo, Norway – March 8, 2006
T-Mobile has chosen Opera Miniâ„¢ to power their web’n’walk offering on high-volume feature phones in Europe. A branded and customizedOpera Miniâ„¢ version with T-Mobile’s look and feel will be pre-installed onfour mobile phones, with several more handsets under development.T-Mobile is the first operator to pre-install customized Opera Minibrowsers on selected handsets.
“Full Internet browsing on mass market mobile handsets is now a viableservice for most consumers,” said Tony Cripps, Wireless Software Analyst,Ovum. “Smartphone owners have already shown the potential of full Internetservices to boost ARPU. Now mobile operators can extend that option acrosstheir customer base and free users from the confines of the walled garden.”
By pre-installing Opera Mini on its high-volume feature phones, T-Mobileis bringing the web’n’walk concept to phones that havepreviously been incapable of running a full Web browser. Consequently, more people cannow surf all their favorite sites on their mobile phones, and T-Mobile canincrease the ARPU from driving data traffic across its entire subscriberbase.
“T-Mobile underlines its committment to bring web’n’walk to the massmarket by enabling an even broader device portfolio to surf the openinternet via the Opera Mini browser,” said Ingo Schneider, Vice PresidentMobile Data, T-Mobile.
“Today’s announcement is a milestone for Opera, T-Mobile and mobile phoneusers,” said Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “As the firstoperator to pre-install Opera Mini on its most popular feature phones,T-Mobile is taking a leading position in offering full Internet access tomobile phone users in Europe.”
T-Mobile was the first operator in Europe that brought full Internetbrowsing to mass market in 2005 with the customized Opera Mobileâ„¢ browseron several handsets. Web’n’walk is T-Mobile’s initiative to differentiateitself as the leading mobile Internet provider and grow data services intoa mass market.
Availability
The Sony Ericsson K608i, Motorola V3/V3i and Nokia 6280 with Opera Miniâ„¢will be available from mid-March, 2006 in Germany. More countries will join.
About T-Mobile
T-Mobile International is one of the world’s leading companies in mobilecommunications. As one of Deutsche Telekom`s three strategic businessunits, T-Mobile concentrates on the most dynamic markets in Europe and theUnited States. By the end of March 2005, nearly 80 million customers areserved in the nine T-Mobile markets. And all that over a common technologyplatform based on GSM, the world’s most successful digital wirelessstandard. This also makes T-Mobile the only mobile communications providerwith a seamless transatlantic service.
T-Mobile also is partner of FreeMove, an alliance formed by four ofEurope’s leading mobile companies – Orange, Telefónica Móviles, TIM(Telecom Italia Mobile) and T-Mobile – to help their customers communicateas easily while travelling abroad as they do at home.
For more information about T-Mobile International, please visit www.t-mobile.net.