by Mike King
Last week, T-Mobile launched a fixed monthly ‘all you can eat’ tariff and now, for £41 per month, users can have unlimited calls, texts and internet access. Well almost. International calls and MMS picture messages are not included in the package but it is still a big step forward for an industry that has consistently struggled with how it charges for mobile data services.
It’s about time mobile operators got their act together and sorted out expensive and complicated tariffs and this move could well be the start of fundamental shift in the industry. Let’s hope so. The likelihood is the rest of the pack will follow T-Mobile’s lead and these types of deals will become commonplace. No more data limits, complicated tariffs or unexpectedly large bills.
Although mobile internet access has grown significantly in percentage terms, the reality is that it still represents a pretty small part of internet usage and for very good reasons.
It has always amused me how much effort operators have put into promoting mobile broadband without addressing the fundamental consumer concerns of cost and performance. As a Blackberry user, for example, access to the internet can only be described as crap – slow, limited access because many websites are ‘too large’ to download and, of course, high data charges.
Even with the costs of mobile broadband coming down, the performance issues remain. 3G services were originally launched in the UK in 2004 and, eight years later, they still haven’t lived up to the early hype where they were touted as a potential future replacement for fixed broadband connections. Last year, for example, Ofcom found that the average mobile broadband speed in the UK is less than a quarter of the average fixed broadband speed.
MWC is just around the corner and attention is firmly on the next big move to 4G. Forgive me for not getting too excited just yet.
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