Europe : 3, the UK's first video mobile network, welcomes the publication of a report by Analysys, the global advisers on telecoms, IT and media, naming ThreePay, the pay-as-you-go offer from 3 UK and 3 UK's mobile video services, as the second and third best wireless services in the world respectively.

In their report, "The World's Top Ten Wireless Services", Analysys identifies those services that exhibit high market potential, effective implementation and suitability for reproduction in other markets.

The ThreePay (pay-as-you-go) price plan, named the number two service in the report, was praised for offering tariffs that combine the value for money and ARPU of contract tariffs, while retaining the benefits of prepaid.

Analysys praised ThreePay for its simple and straightforward tariffs and highlighted its significant advantage over competitors' tariffs, citing as an example that 3's £15 top-up allows 50 more cross-network minutes than O2 and that its £25 top-up allows 380 more cross-network minutes than Orange.

3's video content services, named the number three service in the report, were praised for helping to ignite interest in 3G and for successfully achieving a balance between end-user affordability and operator revenue per Mbyte. The report highlighted that 3's mobile video services on 3G had provided it with a strong early differentiation from its peer group.

Gareth Jones ( inset above ), COO of 3 UK commented: "We are pleased with the findings from Analysys which once again reiterate that 3 offers customers the best value in the market. Our ThreePay service, which saw tremendous growth in 2004, continues to lead the industry in pay-as-you-go plans. We continue to expand our video mobile services and today we offer our customers a wide variety of popular content and services, at affordable prices."

"The top ten services exemplify real opportunities for mobile operators to grow both voice and data revenues," says Dr Alastair Brydon, co-author of the Analysys report. "Our analysis of the services reveals valuable lessons about tariff structures, price levels, marketing, bundling, the role of third parties and the use of 3G networks."

The report names the world's top ten wireless services as:

1. Sprint PCS's bundled voice tariffs (USA)
2. 3's ThreePay prepaid tariffs (UK)
3. 3's mobile video services (UK)
4. O2's SMS services (Ireland)
5. NTT DoCoMo's FOMA 3G service (Japan)
6. Vodafone live! (Worldwide)
7. T-Mobile's TM3 (Germany)
8. Xing's ringtone download service (Japan)
9. IN-FUSIO's games (worldwide)
10. O2's Genion service (Germany)

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