Yoigo is Spain’s fourth mobile operator. The company was born from the demise of Xfera, a subsidiary of construction giant ACS, which bought the rights to one of Spain’s 3G licences back in 2000. However, by 2006, Xfera had still not launched. Last summer, TeliaSonera, the leading mobile operator in the Nordic region bought Xfera. In only three months Yoigo was up and running. By the end of December it had 30,000 subscribers. It has its own 3G network but uses Vodafone’s 2G network for national calls.
Recently, Yoigo started offering unlimited 3G broadband access for a daily rate of only €1.20! In other words you can now have highspeed internet access anywhere in Spain for as little as €36 per month! ADSL providers must surely be worried and a price war looks certain to follow.
Perhaps the bigger worry is for the developers of Wi-Max and companies such as Fon. Achieving wireless network coverage that is as good as current mobile coverage is going to be costly (especially in the case of Wi-Max) and will take time. If all mobile operators reduce their prices to this level the uptake is likely to be huge and by the time Fon or Wi-Max are able provide comparable coverage there will be little incentive to switch.
Julian Martinez's Blog 
ansaria said
Great! but there’s an error in these words:
“you can now have highspeed internet access anywhere in Spain for as little as €36 per month!”
you’ll have highspeed internet access just in the paces where yoigo 3G network has coverage… and I think there aren’t many places in that situation…
You can check the 3G coverage at http://cobertura.yoigo.com/?lang=es. Check only “Datos hasta 384Kbps” to see the places to go…
Julian Martinez said
Yes its true that the coverage is still very limited, but surely they will have a network in place soon at least in the big cities, no?
In my opinion 384Kbps is good enough for most Internet users. You can surf the web, check email and maybe even use skype (no emule).
Once Yoigo increases the coverage it will put dramatic price pressure on the other alternative, don’t you think so?
ansaria said
yes you are right. I always think about a “global wireless market” not just 3G, Wifi or Wimax.
Technology is just a way to achive the real aim: global communications. All biggest telcos are working in its UMA service: convergence of communications (fixed lines, VoIP, wifi, GSM/3G, and in the future: Wimax) and also there are smaller companies working in roaming platforms like the spanish gowex.
FON only have one alternative in this moment: update its business model to a roaming company, in the same way as gowex… or to be sold asap… 🙂