BT backs Cellnet

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Updated:

 

At last, it is good to surf with British Telecom.

The giant has missed a few tricks - particularly by losing out to Freeserve in winning 'Internet eyeballs' (customers).

In a fast and furious game of catch-up, BT is putting £50m behind BT Cellnet to try to become number one in UK mobile phone Web surfing.

It has an uphill struggle. Vodafone AirTouch has 8m local customers and a global plan. Cellnet has 7m, but has a head start with 500,000 subscribers on its limited Genie service. Yesterday Cellnet launched the first full-blown Web service.

Its wireless application protocol (WAP) Nokia phones go on sale for £130 on Monday. Vodafone's launch is 'early next week'. Orange started in November with a more limited service. One2One aims for early spring.

The service, costing 5p a minute, offers email, news, travel and entertainment. When fancy phones arrive this summer, they will alert you when your BT shares (down 1p to 1205p) dive or when you are near a shop with the Boyzone CD you wanted. Cellnet hopes for 1m customers by March.

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