Alfie Dennen of moblogUK tells it like it is to the Telegraph on mobile data
Nice one Alfie!
Link: Telegraph | Digital Life
Alfie Dennen, who runs moblogUK, a photo site built around uploaded cameraphone pictures, agrees. “The amount of innovation in the mobile sector in the UK is phenomenal,” he says. “Also, there is now a hell of a lot more investment.”
Kudos to Robert Colvile of the Telegraph for checking up with Alfie. There’s more…
Before we can embrace this wireless world, however, another revolution is needed – in data transfer. At the moment, mobile companies operate on the Gillette model: give ‘em the razors, gouge ‘em on the blades.
Handsets are heavily subsidised, to lure you into those expensive calls and texts and downloads (this is a problem for the iPhone: its music and videos come from the user’s computer, not its partners’ networks, reducing the income carriers can claw back).
“The operators have been charging so much money for so long,” says Dennen. “Even with text messaging, the cost is ridiculous. That’s one of the main things that’s kept people from using these high-end functions on their handsets.
If you’re a T-Mobile customer, you’re paying 2p per kilobyte of data — that’s 60p for a 30KB email. It’s mad.”
However, the advent of unlimited-data price plans — such as 3’s X-series — and of phones that can take advantage of the rapid growth in Wi-Fi networks, could transform the situation.
“If, in five or 10 years’ time, we have ubiquitous wireless coverage, you’ll see mobile operators becoming more like data providers,” predicts Dennen.
“Once you have the right sort of connection speed, you can have all of the phone’s processing done online. What you’ll have in your pocket will essentially be a screen – maybe made from ’smart textiles’ so you can fold it into your wallet – which drags the data from the internet.”
Get in. Even an X-Series mention too.
cheers for the postage Ewan. One thing to clarify here, Robert misquoted me on the T-mobile example slightly; I was talking about their PAYG tariff, which *is* 2p per kilobyte, I would have mentioned their good web’n'walk tariff, but they’ve been thoroughly outflanked by 3’s x-series model so I used that as an example instead.
Talking about a sort of ‘thin client’ mobile, my closest experience to this so far is the Nokia 770; although it has loads of on-board apps, there is a *lot* you can do with just a web browser - from making calls to using AJAX word processing etc.
Posted by alfie on January 22nd, 2007 at 12:47 pm.