O2 is the latest company to enter the "Free Broadband" world of mobile phone marketing, with their £50m purchase of Be. Whether they will offer broadband for free is yeat to be seen, but added to their recent acquisition of The Link, they are certainly heading in Carphone Warehouse' direction. What will be more interesting is whether any of the Operators will be willing to offer unlimited HSDPA access to compete with home broadband when these services become available later in the year. This at least has some service synergies with the mobile phone, and is less likely to damage the brand than bundling free products in. Do we all remember what happened when Hoover tried to give away free flights?

ITV meanwhile jump on the mobile TV bandwagon with rumours that they will make all of their programming available over mobile phones by the end of this year. With such a limited Broadband TV offering to date, it would seem rash for ITV to jump straight to the small screen, but the hype around mobile TV certainly seems to be pushing things in that direction. With Channel 4 offering live TV on the web already, it would seem that ITV are lagging somewhat...

Original Source: Mobile Strategies