The home network, which allows users to access content they want on their terms and across devices, may finally have arrived. Mobile operator and media company 3 (in partnership with Skype, Sling Media, Yahoo, Nokia, Google, eBay, Microsoft, Orb, and Sony Ericsson) has unveiled an ambitious mobile broadband offer that places the mobile phone at the center of the home entertainment experience. The service – dubbed the X-Series - allows users remote access to their PC, and all the digital media stored there (using a service from Orb), and enables them to watch home cable TV on mobile (provided they have a Slingbox installed in the home).

Two new handsets - Nokia N73 and the Sony Ericsson W950i – support the service and will feature the Sling application. With these devices, users can watch any channel available on their cable TV at home. The phones can also be used to control a digital video recorder at home, pausing and rewinding live television, playing previously recorded shows, or setting up the DVR to record a program.
The X-Series from 3 will be priced in a similar way to fixed line broadband. In a nutshell, X-Series customers will be charged flat access fees for X-Series mobile broadband services on top of their basic subscription. The access fees, the company said, “will include all you can Skype, all you can chat by instant text message and all you can search and browse.” There will initially be an additional access fee for customers who also take higher-bandwidth services like Sling and Orb.  Just like the fixed line internet, all X-Series services will be free at the point of use, subject only to fair usage limits. The partnership with Skype means users can also make unlimited calls from their phone – putting another nail in the coffin of pricey mobile tariffs and the mobile operators that survive by charging them. And we know from yesterday’s announcement that access to Google (as well as Yahoo and Windows Live Messenger) rounds out the offer.

Frank Sixt, Group Finance Director of Hutchison Whampoa, said in a press statement : “We believe that giving our customers the benefit of the favorable economics of the broadband world will lead more customers to join our network. That is the proposition the 3 Group will be putting forward in all of its markets under the X-Series…. The X-Series heralds important changes in the business model for mobile media and internet. Moving away from unit charges will set mobile users free to enjoy broadband services without fear of ‘bill-shock’.”