BT Cellnet beefs up its Web and WAP strategies

BT Cellnet today announced plans to beef-up its mobile Internet strategy with expansions to its Genie service, and what it claims is the first pre-pay WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) phone in the UK.

The mobile operator is also setting up a new division to oversee its global mobile Internet strategy and is restructuring its pricing structure to let users to choose between voice-only and Internet calls.

The Genie service provides an Internet portal for information delivered to mobile devices. Today's announcements included a deal with Freeserve that allows all Freeserve's two million subscribers to send and retrieve emails via BT Cellnet mobiles.

BT says it expects to sell 500,000 of its new WAP phones before June this year, and predicts nearly all mobile phone sales will be WAP-enabled within 18 months. It is adding handsets from Alcatel, Mitsubishi and Siemens to its list of suppliers -currently limited to Motorola and Nokia.

Peter Erskine, managing director of BT Cellnet, said the announcements mark the end of the old mobile phone market.

However, Dan Ridsdale, consultant at Ovum, said while the proposals were interesting, "they're designed to distract attention away from BT's struggling share price - by saying: 'Look we're an Internet company'".