KEY POINTS:
One thing that's become obvious to me over the last couple of weeks as I've been travelling around Europe, is just how much more productive I am when I have decent access to the internet and email on the move.
I've been travelling with a Blackberry 8830 (I'll be doing a full review of my experience with that device later in the week) and using Wi-Fi where available on the Nokia N95 or iPhone - I've got all the bases covered on this trip.
What's really struck me is how, on the face of it, competitive mobile data plans have become in some European countries. Here in Britain for instance, there's burgeoning competition in the all-you-can-eat mobile data market.
For instance, T-Mobile is offering unlimited data (in reality 3GB a month as that's where the fair use policy is capped), a free HSPA broadband modem and free access to their 1200 WI-Fi hotspots in the UK for around 14 pounds a month (subject to a 24 month sign-up period. T-Mobile's casual rates are also pretty good - you can pay just to receive mobile data on your phone for short periods - for instance, one pound for a day's unlimited access or 2.50 for five days access. At the Mobile World Congress, an executives for Spain's Telefonica and Italy's Wind told me that pre-paid mobile data plans had been raging successes.
Then we have O2 with the exclusive rights to the iPhone in the UK. It offers unlimited mobile data (with fair-use policy) and access to the Cloud network of Wi-Fi hotspots for free (there are several thousand across the UK) with each voice deal you go for. O2 claims data usage is skyrocketing as a result. The O2 deal is quite attractive because the iPhone does such a good job over a Wi-Fi connection.
The O2-Cloud deal mirrors that which AT&T is offering its broadband customers in the US - free Wi-Fi hotspot access when you're already a paid-up customer.
As Engadget pointed out last year, there are fish hooks in a lot of these types of flat-rate deals. But I definitely got the sense at the Mobile World Congress this year that in Europe and to some extent the US, there's a real shift underway in which carriers are acknowledging that having people on all-you-can-eat mobile data plans is good for business. Also giving them flexibility to use a little bit of data on their handsets every now and then means they'll gradually become bigger mobile data users.
Obviously our mobile data rates in New Zealand (generally $50 a month for a 1GB data cap using a mobile data card) don't look as enticing without the all-you-can-eat element and the free Wi-Fi access thrown in. The European operators are also still heavily into subsidising handsets if you sign up for a two year contract. Then again there are usually three or four mobile operators in each of those European markets. Competition is good, but so is encouraging consumers to use all those fancy online applications the handsets they bought are capable of without the worry of being landed with a massive mobile data bill.
