Australia: growing into the mobile space: the competition hots up down under as operators compete for users in this growing marketplace

New Media Age, November, 2003 by Greg Brooks

Australia is a country that's home to 0.2 % of the world's population but covers 5% of its landmass. That works out to an average of 2.6 people per square kilometre compared to the world average of 45. There's a lot of space out there and the Australian mobile market, although smaller than the UK's in terms of users, has to cover much more ground.

Despite this 'smaller pond' in terms of users the market supports a number of different players (see table). There are three next generation services on offer, Vodafone Live!, 3 and Telstra Mobile Loop. All of these services launched within a few months of each other earlier this year, creating an interesting situation not seen in the UK where launches of next generation services are more gradual.

Graham Christie,...