Dell are going to be pre-installing their own "White-label" broadband on all of their laptops and tablets in the future thanks to a collaboration with Three and Macheen.
Three announced a partnership with Macheen, who produce White-label mobile broadband software, earlier last last year and this agreement with Dell is the first product of the partnership.
In this new agreement Macheen will provide white-label mobile broadband services to Dell and share the revenue generated with Three, who provide the mobile broadband network, and Dell.
This is a very interesting new revenue stream for mobile broadband providers and one which could become more widespread in the next couple of months. The operators need to be careful though because if they all start doing this with every manufacturer they will ultimately reduce the industries total revenue stream.
However, for an upstart mobile broadband provider or one looking to gain market share this is an excellent way to get an installed user-base.
On the consumers end we're not sure whether they will get as good a deal compared to going straight to the operator , which is surely a bad thing for everyone.
The question the device manufacturers need answered is whether consumers are willing to sign up for White-label broadband if it is more expensive than going directly to the operators.
We'll just have to wait and see how the take-up turns out but Macheen have been implementing similar agreements in other countries, so the initial results must be pretty positive. 3G is skeptical that even if initial take-up is decent when words get around it might all come crumbling down.
