A new marketing initiative in Britain for Orange, a wireless operator owned by France Telecom, captures the subtle but significant shift taking place in the European mobile industry.
Like most other operators in Europe, Orange dangles a piece of free hardware in exchange for a two-year service contract. But this time, to win customers, Orange is including a laptop computer, not a mobile phone.
The "Connected Laptop" offer includes a free laptop from Asus or Hewlett Packard, a USB modem and up to five gigabytes of downloads for pound(s)25 to pound(s)45, or $49 to $88, per month. As mobile operators start giving away devices other than cell phones, experts say, the industry is entering a new phase.
"As the European market gets more saturated, operators are looking at other drivers from a connection standpoint," said Carolina Milanesi, director of mobile devices at Gartner in London. "The laptop subsidies reflect the growing importance of mobile broadband to the business."
When the first mobile networks took shape, they were extensions of the home telephone, a way for people to stay in touch on the go.
But with the arrival several years ago of functioning, high-speed wireless networks capable of download speeds similar to those in a home DSL connection, the focus is shifting rapidly to the transmission of immense data packets.
With revenue from voice calls growing slowly, if at all, pressure is building on many operators to generate more revenue from data. Informa Telecoms & Media, a research firm, said that revenue from mobile data, including text messages, would rise to more than $200 billion worldwide this year, from $157 billion in 2007.
Since 2006, wireless operators have installed 207 networks that use High-Speed Downlink Packet Access, or HSDPA, technology, which is the first souped-up version of the so-called third-generation networks, offering at least a fivefold...

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