3G or not 3G?

Vodafone Ireland pulled the wraps off its consumer 3G extravanganza today but, despite being only two weeks from official launch, kept completely schtum about pricing.

Though Voda CEO Paul Donovan told the assembled hacks that the handset pricing would start at €170 (probably for the Motorola V980, the other two launch phones are the Nokia 6630 and Sony Ericsson V800), he wouldn't be drawn on tariffs.

But Vodafone UK, which goes live at the same time, had no such qualms and based on British prices starting at £40, we can expect to pay rental of anywhere between €50 and €60 a month for the privilege of making video calls, receiving clips of Premiership goals and watching news bulletins).

And that's before you pay for the calls, clips and bulletins, etc.

Donovan did hint that, as we saw with Three in the Britain, Vodafone's large bundles of free voice calls might be the carrot to sign up for the 3G services.