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File this under: Ideas that simply wouldn’t work in the U.S. (though we wish they would). UK company Blyk has announced that they will offer, as an MVNO, free cell phone service to Brittons aged 16 to 24. Yes, free. How will they pay the bills, you ask? Ad revenue. The hitch to this service is that users have to agree to receive advertising. We’re not sure if or how this is going to work, but it’s certainly a novel concept that warrants further investigation.

When you sign up, you agree to certain advertising features. First is that you will receive six text messages per day from Blyk, which will be messages from their partners. You’ll also have to fill out profiling information upon signing up so that the right kind of ads are sent to you. Additionally, you’ll have to opt in to SMS polling systems (which can be a real pain in the ass, but a small price to pay for free service).

The trade-off is that you get 217 free text messages and 43 minutes of voice time per month. Yes, 43 minutes may seem like a pittance, but remember, it’s free. Data services are also available, but at a hefty rate: 99 pence/minute, which is closer to $2 US.

However, we couldn’t find anywhere — not on the press release, not on Blyk’s homepage — how much it would cost for additional minutes. Added text messages are 5 pence each, and MMS are 20 pence.

We’re kind of divided on this issue. Because of our American biases, we think this is going to fail quickly. However, things just aren’t the same overseas. So yeah, it has potential. The question is, would you sign up for a service like this if it came to the U.S.?

[mocoNews]

Posted By : Joe
Posted at : September 24th, 2007 - 12:00 pm
Filed under : Prepaid Services