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Rather than a walled garden approach to Internet access - where the network operator has tight control over the online services available, but can also guarantee a high quality optimised browsing experience - T-Mobile is handing 'web'n'walk' customers the keys to the wider web.

Costs start at around

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£9 a month for 40MB of data use. The company equates this to around 2,500 emails or 500 web pages. This charge is included in three tariffs at £30, £38 and £55 a month with differing amounts of voice minutes in each package. Additional data use will cost £1 per MB.

Five devices will be available in the UK under the service, to be expanded to eight by Christmas, and the company intends to plough £10mn into marketing 'web'n'walk'.

T-Mobile says it expects mobile networks to be carrying the same if not more Internet traffic than fixed line broadband eventually. It plans to introduce a network enhancement called HSDPA (High Speed Download Packet Access) - capable of boosting bandwidths to four times that of 3G - which should help this cause.

O2 has also launched NTT DoCoMo's i-mode Internet service in the UK which also offers a broad range of services and sites to users.