U.K. operator 3 will shake up the mobile broadband market next month when it launches cut-rate high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) services. The move could spark the first mobile broadband price war in the U.K. (See 3 UK Prices X-Series and 3 Plots Mobile Broadband.)

    Unstrung can reveal that the operator will offer HSDPA services with speeds up to 2.8 Mbit/s for £10 (US$20) per month for 1 Gbyte of data, which will considerably undercut the offers from the second quarter, Orange UK , T-Mobile (UK) , and Vodafone UK .

        Other tariffs will be a 3-Gbyte service for £15 ($30) per month and a 7-Gbyte service for £25 ($50) per month.

    3 has not yet unveiled the pricing of the USB modem. One report says it will be free for existing 3 customers but will costs £79 ($156) on a 12-month contract or £29 ($57) on an 18-month contract.

    According to an Unstrung Insider report, which was published in December last year, the average price for a 1-Gbyte service was $60 per month, including the modem. The lowest price in Europe was around $40 per month including the modem, says Brown.

    T-Mobile's cheapest 3 Glap top data service in the U.K. is $57 per month, which includes the modem, for unlimited data. Vodafone offers a 3G data service for $59 per month for 3 Gbytes; the USB modem is free on an 18-month contract and costs $118 on a 12-month contract. (See Carrier Scorecard: T-Mobile International, Vodafone Prices Data Roaming, Orange Touts 3G Data, and O2 Reports Q2.)

    "Mobile operators have historically priced mobile bandwidth as a scare resource that has to be protected with high tariffs," says Gabriel Brown, Unstrung Insider chief analyst and author of the report Mobile Broadband Pricing Strategies & HSDPA. "But HSDPA changes the economics of mobile broadband by allowing more users to share each 5 MHz radio channel."