Mobile Data : The Big New Thing in 2007
This time of year you can see a whole lot of tech bloggers go all misty eyed and reflected on what the big thing was in 2007. The iPhone got some love from Time, and the BBC team passed on their thoughts. One thing that I thought was a huge game changer and that I’ve not seen any mention of is inclusion of a flat rate data plan for the iPhone.
Sounds pretty dull doesn’t it?
Mobile data and the way that it’s charged is a bit like the situation that the wired Internet went through 10 years ago. You had to pay a monthly charge (I was with Demon, £15 per month) as well as paying per minute for your phone bill. You could do all sorts of cheeky measures to reduce your cost per minute but it was still a costly affair. One eye on your screen, the other on the clock.
Then came Freeserve. Freeserve was a game changer. No monthly charge, you just paid through your phone bill. If you were on for 5 minutes you were charged for 5 minutes at a very, very low rate. It meant that a whole new audience could go on line, those people who wanted to dabble on-line rather than commit. Internet growth during that time climbed. Then unmetered access through dial up came about but never really took off.
Then came unmetered broadband. And that took Internet usage in the home through the roof. Why? Well the experience was better (freed up your phone line, speed) and as you paid a monthly amount it meant that you could plan what you could spend. Internet connectivity had become a utility service.
Mobile data is still in the early stages. Previously I was on a monthly contract that gave me 5Mb of data free on my phone then charged me about 85p every additional Mb. That could get pretty expensive for me. Though on my Nokia N80 it was hardly the best experience. And getting a wifi connection was painful and then even connecting to it was a nightmare.
Since the introduction of free wifi with The Cloud and connecting my home Internet connection to BT Fon means that I can get pretty good wifi access quickly when needed too. Since moving on to the iPhone data package I’ve saved around £75 of data in a month. This totally changes the way that I’m using data on the move. I’m looking at the screen and not with one eye on the costs. I’m using the mobuile Internet all the time now for updating things, maps, all sorts. It’s pretty liberating.
I’m not sure if O2 are planning to roll this package out to all their calling plans regardless of which phone you’re on. For me it has been a big step for casual computing and the most important step forward in making mobile Internet a real, everyday occurrence, it’s as big as the way that broadband revolutionised Internet use in the home.
