Britain Wakes Up To Mobile Web Services
The first mobile operators are beginning to offer fully fledged internet services to customers on the move, opening up a wide range of possibilities for online advertisers and content providers.
The first such move was made by mobile firm O2 last week. The company’s adoption of Japanese firm NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode technology allows customers in Ireland to browse the web via a mobile phone in much the same way as they would via a desktop PC.
T-Mobile has also got in on the act, launching new Web’n’Walk tariffs along with five internet enabled mobile devices which will allow an online experience similar to that provided by desktop systems.
3G operator 3 also launched plans to allow customers outside of their ‘walled garden’ last month, opening up a limited amount of content external to its existing music and video services.
Mobile internet access is expected to be big business by many telecoms firms, with T-Mobile claiming its new services will lead to a “considerable growth in total internet usage and, ultimately, more internet traffic being carried by mobile than by fixed line”.
Mobile users are currently limited to using WAP to gain internet access on the move, a technology which despite growing usage figures (see Britain’s Fondness For WAP Increases) is unable to match fully fledged internet access in terms of speed, rich media and interactivity.
According to T-Mobile, it’s new High Speed Download Packet Access (HSDPA) network, going live in 2006, will give mobile users access to speeds up to 1.8MB per second, comparing to landline broadband speeds of between 264KB and 1MB per second.
The mobile firm also plans to charge users £9 per month for 40MB of data usage, equivalent to around 2,500 emails or 500 web pages.
Explaining the need for true internet rather than walled garden solutions, Rene Obermann, group CEO of T-Mobile International, said: “In the past, mobile has sold a limited form of internet – slow, difficult and expensive to use. It’s asked customers to learn how to use it. It’s then tried to keep customers under control in Walled Gardens.
“A new approach is needed. Mobile should not try to create a new type of internet. It should give customers the same internet they already have but mobile and ensure it works the same way it already works on their PC.”
Commenting on the potentially massive takeup of mobile internet technology, Danuta Gray, chief executive officer of O2 Ireland added: “i-mode is the world’s most widely used mobile internet service. Following its introduction in Japan in 1999, it drove internet penetration levels up from 18% to 78% in the space of 5 years and its success in Europe to date has seen two operators gain 1 million i-mode subscribers each within two years of launch.
“Currently Ireland’s low levels of internet penetration means that 63% of homes have no form of internet access and of these households, 60% state that the reason why they won’t get internet access is because they don’t have a PC and they perceive it to be too expensive.”
True mobile internet is not the only new mobile technology looming on the horizon. Several mobile operators are beginning trials of mobile TV services, with broadcast infrastructure operator Arqiva demonstrating Britain’s first use of video broadcasting using the DVB-H standard last month.
The new technology allows portable TV to be broadcast over radio waves rather than 3G telephone networks, reducing bottlenecks and enabling devices such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and laptop PCs to view high quality, real time streaming content (see Arqiva To Demonstrate Mobile Video Standard).
3 Mobile: www.three.co.uk O2: www.O2.co.uk T-Mobile: www.tmobile.co.uk