It’s a big milestone for the mobile internet - At the beginning of this month, Vodafone announced some new consumer tariff plans in the UK market which include 500 MB of flat rate mobile internet access. Previously, mobile internet access was charged at a significant monthly premium. Now it’s included “free” in the standard tariff plan.

Don’t get too carried away with Vodafone’s spin on this. Vodafone users aren’t going to be queueing up to change their existing tariffs just yet. Compare the minutes and texts between these new “Vodafone best-ever value tariffs” and “Vodafone’s most popular price plans” on their UK website.

Vodafone’s “best-ever value” tariffs

Vodafone’s “most popular” price plans

I do think that this is exactly the sort of simplification step that is required to open up the mobile internet for the mass market. Mobile internet pricing has been enormously complicated and confusing for users. People are scared that if they use the mobile internet they’ll get hit with big unforeseen bills - even when they have flat rate tariffs, as one Vodafone UK user with a flat rate data card connection found out when he went to Germany and accidentally downloaded a whole episode of Friends that his wife had previously set running on his laptop in the UK – the world’s most expensive premium download at £11,000 or $22,000USD.

Mobile internet has a bright future ahead of it when operators include a big flat rate chunk of data as a standard feature of mainstream consumer contract tariffs. We are going to see a lot more of this kind of pricing in the US and in Western European markets where there is enough 3.5G infrastructure installed to enable it.

The mobile web is still only a fragment of the wider desktop web we use everyday, so one of the challenges operators, website owners and users face is how on Earth to cram this big web onto small screens.

Different people tackle the problem in different ways, as the Sender 11 blog points out:

Apple: Adapt the phone to the web.
Opera: Adapt the web to the phone.

But then, there’s a third option: Bulldoze everything with a transcoder, including sites which are already mobile, and don’t shed a tear for the casualties.

This approach has unfortunately been adopted by a number of operators, namely Vodafone and TeliaSonera with Novarra, and Sprint with OpenWave.

When I think of the carelessness these guys are exhibiting, I get a Hulk moment “Vero angry, Vero smash phones! ARGGHHHH!” It boggles the mind how Sprint can go as far as saying it’s in the customer’s best interest. If they really cared about the customer experience, they wouldn’t highjack user agents, they would acknowledge sites which are already mobile-ready and they would listen to the community’s needs.

Anyone who isn’t directly involved in the mobile industry is unlikely to realise that the site they’re browsing looks crap on their phone, not by the website owner’s fault or because their phone isn’t up to par, but squarely because of the operator’s complete disregard for its customers. A little bit of me dies every time I see a friend criticize the mobile web’s shortcomings when it’s really due to bastardised transcoding.

Operators claim to be offering a proverbial olive branch by telling mobile website owners to request to be added to a whitelist. Dennis at Wapreview sounded the alarm on the latest whitelist to join but this is a neverending game of whack-a-mole! As far as I know, between Spain and the UK, Vodafone doesn’t even share its whitelist! (If anyone can tell me I’m wrong on this one, I’ll regain a bit of faith in the Big Red.)

As Dennis explains, unless you have a handset on the local network, it’s difficult to find out what’s happening to your site once it goes through the shredder:

Unless you have a Sprint handset there’s really no way to tell if your site’s being transcoded. If you do have a Sprint phone you can generally tell just by looking at the screen but if in doubt use the device’s Show URL browser menu command. If it starts with http://sprint.aopwv.com/ you are being transcoded.

Mobhappy, Mike Rowehl, Techype, RCR Wireless News and Semapedia, amongst others, have picked up on the issue, and they’re all as unimpressed as I am with the situation.

How could anyone, in their infinite wisdom, think this was a scaleable and manageable way to decide what sites to leave as-is? Seriously, I’m willing to give anyone from an operator a fair hearing, I’ll even buy ‘em a beer, if they can explain to me how they’re going to improve on the current situation from here.

If you’re a developer and your mobile site is affected by the latest Sprint issue, register on the Sprint forums and leave a comment in this thread to get whitelisted.

[Update: Russ at Mowser posted, following my angry post, to shed light on how what Mowser does is different to the operator’s transcoders, so if you’re still fuzzy on what is proper and improper behaviour for adapting content, check out his post. At the core of it all though, Mowser listen to their users and are part of the community rather than living up in that cozy ivory tower. That makes all the difference.]

Several people asked me about the implications of Google’s launch of Android this week. Here’s my take on it.

• Google is finding it hard to replicate its successful desktop search model in the mobile world.
• One of the big barriers, as Google see it, is the continued presence of walled gardens erected by the mobile operators which interfere with Google’s ability to reach out to consumers directly with an optimised search experience.
• Another key barrier Google sees is a lack of understanding by handset manufacturers of what it takes to truly turn the handset into a useful mobile internet device.
• Google see a more capable mobile browser across the widest possible range of handsets as a key enabler for better mobile search. Not just on high end devices like the iPhone and N95, but right across the handset market.
• Android is an initiative that if successful would break down a number of these barriers in one fell swoop.

Will Android be successful? I wouldn’t completely rule it out, but I remain cautious…

Not very much has been said about exactly what Android contains and what it doesn’t contain. Does it have a complete user interface layer? Does it integrate a full set of phone applications (SMS, MMS, IM etc)? Does it include a 3G protocol stack? The lack of a complete solution would make it very expensive to bring an Android handset to market compared to Symbian and Microsoft.

From a technical perspective Google’s platform reminds me of Savaje (US-based mobile OS startup, now defunct) and the operator-led Open Mobile Terminal Platform Alliance (Java-based OS, initially implemented on HTC devices).

With the OMTP Alliance, the operators wanted to weaken the grip of Nokia and Microsoft on the phone OS, and get control over the user experience. Google’s Open Handset Alliance is an attempt to build similar industry support, but has notably fewer operators participating.

Getting a new OS into significant volume i.e. 10s of millions of new handsets is a massive engineering undertaking. Are Google resourced to deliver this? They have plenty of software engineers, but not too many mobile software engineers.

Android is an initiative without a business model. In my experience, these kinds of strategic initiatives don’t get sustained unless the business model is clearly defined.

James Q. Pearce at MocoNews points us to a report by The Age which claims that Australian youngsters are having to declare themselves bankrupt due to overspending their meagre revenue on mobile bills.

“Fair Trading Minister Linda Burney said a survey conducted by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) had highlighted concerns about “premium” mobile phone content and the massive bills being racked up - often unknowingly - by users.

“Suddenly they have got bills of $3,000 to $4,000 AUD because they thought services they were getting in term of downloads and ringtones, and voting on Big Brother, were free,” Ms Burney told reporters.”

Normally, my attitude would be that someone should give them a dollar to go buy a clue and that these teens should get themselves out of the trouble they got in. Learning responsibility, character building and what not.

But when it comes to mobile, there are some very grey zones. In theory, providers of mobile services are obliged to clearly explain cost of use in plain English. In practice, they’ll often use convoluted terminology and small print to pass a quick one while the user isn’t paying attention. With no experience in escalating issues with customer service in a telco, the teens find themselves backed against a wall and declaring bankruptcy crops up as a potential way out.

In my ideal world of rainbows and unicorns, every service would be morally correct and would not attempt to fool consumers. There would be no headline shouting “Only £1 for the ringtone” shadowing over small print whispering that a minimum of half a dozen ringtones a month must be purchased.

As James suggests, “surely a little flag saying ‘hey, this person has spent $200 on mobile content, we should let them know’ isn’t that hard to implement?” This should be a requirement where any service provider is required to update customers regularly on their spending.

For example, T-Mobile UK sent me a free SMS every Friday at lunchtime to let me know how many of my monthly minutes I had left and how long I had to use them up. After a few weeks, I stopped the automated SMS since I had a pretty good idea of my phone use, but it was extremely useful in the early days. Networks are also taking a step in the right direction by notifying you of roaming charges via SMS when entering a new European country.

To the suggestion of widening the net to all paid-for mobile services, the default reaction for operators would most likely be that it’ll cause users to hold back on using their services - having realised how much money they’re blowing on Crazy Frog ringtones - promptly eating into their high profit margins.

That being said, I’m convinced that for nine out of 10 users, it would have quite the opposite effect. The most common reservation we continually hear during user testing sessions for Taptu is that most consumers have no concept of how much a song download or a quick browse of the mobile web is costing them. As a result, they choose to avoid using it altogether for fear of racking up immense bills. For these users, I’m willing to bet my place in the iPhone queue this Friday that they’d be pleasantly surprised at the low cost of their mobile web use.

Do other services offer this kind of triggered courtesy notices to let you track your spending? Would you welcome such a service?

If these automated messages were sent to the teens The Age reported on, they couldn’t claim innocence when the bills start rolling in, forcing them to decide to either pay up, shape up their habits in the future or disconnect and find a different hobby. Maybe knitting or paperclip collecting.

Welcome to this week’s Carnival of the Mobilists, I’m thrilled to be hosting it here on the Taptu blog.

The turnout in posts has been great, and we’re covering a wide range of topics today; from web3.0 to free speech, and from Burmese dissent to UFO sightings. There’s also a sneak preview surprise for all Carnival readers at the bottom of this post… So what are you waiting for? Read on!

Innovation in Developing Markets

From Mobile Active, guest writer Abi Jagun from the University of Manchester deconstructs the hype on mobiles in civil society, in particular in developing countries. Kevin Smith from Vodafone Betavine touches on the inventiveness of some African services when faced with a problem, from “beeping” each other to transferring funds via a mobile payment service. In a similar thread, Paul Ruppert at Mobile Point View posts the first of a two-part series on mobile transactions, interviewing Michele Scanlon, an expert on mobile payments in global emerging markets.

Controversy in America

Abhishek Tiwari discusses the seemingly game-changing decisions Sprint has made over their wireless offering in the US, moving away from the binding contracting model and transitioning to a subscription model without users being tied to a specific device. Echoing some of the Sprint news mentioned by Abhishek, Jason Devitt from Skydeck tells us about Verizon Wireless (almost) declining to allow Pro-Choice America send messages, explicitly requested by users, about abortion, on the grounds that the subject matter was too controversial.

Ian Welsh of The Agonist questions net neutrality in the current oligo/monopoly of the telecoms landscape, putting out red flags around AT&T and Verizon’s questionable termination clauses.

Learning From the Past

Reflecting on the launch of the Sputnik 50 years ago, Judy Breck reminds us that today’s educators should use mobiles to support lessons in a positive way rather than resort to banning them from classrooms.

A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words

Mark van ‘t Hooft at Ubiquitous Thoughts posts his observations on the dilemma military generals are facing in the current Burma/Myanmar protests with regards to the use of mobile phones and information virality. Also musing on the impact of new technologies, Krisse from All About Symbian wonders about UFOs and the effect of cameraphones on the sightings. Quick, get your camera out, there’s something weird up there!

The Web Is Abuzz…

Meanwhile, C. Enrique Ortiz from …about mobility comments on Jason Calacanis’ “official” definition of Web 3.0, and Ajit Jaokar of Open Gardens writes on the “Phonetop”, mobile equivalent to the desktop, ODP and widgets as the possible future of mobile apps.

Dennis from Wapreview looks at the mobile version of Gawker Media sites I’m a big fan of; Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Valleywag, Wonkette and Defamer. Verdict? “It’s nice to see that a big publisher like Gawker is thinking of mobile, but these really aren’t very good mobile sites.” Read on to find out why. Tarek Esber from tarek speaks mobile… takes us through how the mobile web saved the day twice by allowing him to connect to important information in a quickie, taking him to destination.

Mobile Conference

This week, Rudy De Waele points us to the Mobile 2.0 Conference, which is taking place in San Francisco next Monday, 15th October. Presented by Mobile Monday and The Open Group, the event brings together experts and thought leaders from all aspects of mobile; investors, mobile carriers, device manufacturers, application developers and web technologists.

Coincidentally, Taptu will be presenting in one of the Mobile Launch Pads and showing some pretty exciting stuff! Have a look at the agenda and the speakers list and come tell me you don’t want to be there? I’ve been informed there are a few places left for those who’d like to attend.

And Finally… The Sneak Preview!

This brings me to the sneak preview you’ve been waiting for; we’ve decided to invite Carnival readers to have an early look at the Taptu mobile search beta, before we launch publicly. Want to have a look? Just leave a comment using a legitimate email address or email me on hello@taptu.com and you’ll get access to our private beta tomorrow.

Next week, the spotlight for the Carnival will be on the Symbian Smartphone Show, so see you there!

In the past few weeks, I’ve spent a vast number of hours in the car as a passenger - mostly on the M25, completely stationary, desperately looking for a source of entertainment. You can only spend so long counting red cars, changing CDs and playing “I spy…” before getting a bad case of cabin fever.

So I thought I’d browse a few of my favourite blogs on a borrowed Orange mobile, instead of my usual T-Mobile web’n'walk, but came to the realisation that my usual reads were blocked. No bloglines, Seth Godin or access to my own blog either. I appealed with Orange that the sites should be reviewed as, surely, I wasn’t posting lewd “adult content” by Orange’s definition. All requests were turned down!

While on the road, without an account number at hand, Orange customer service could not make the change for me and I was unable to turn off Safeguard and resume regular surfing. I was destined to be limited to a few websites until I returned home. It was a looong journey…

Now, I’m not picking on Orange - It just happens to be the only one I’ve had problems with. I’m clearly not the only one getting annoyed with networks defaulting users to being mobile-nanny’ed.

While it’s fair enough that users known to be underage are limited to a range of websites - since parents aren’t able to view browsing history or set parental control as one would on a desktop computer - it’s impractical and annoying for the rest of us mobile surfers.

Once I returned to a desktop computer, it was a doddle to turn off Safeguard. If you’re with Orange, you can follow the steps below to do the same.

Turning off Safeguard on Orange

• Log in to your Orange account
• Either sign-in using your mobile number and password, or
• Register to access your account details online
• Enter your mobile number and click the radio button saying “I don’t have a password and would like to register”
• If you have your mobile with you, Orange will send you a text message containing a short code which will confirm the mobile is in your possession
• Once you’ve logged in to your account, you’ll find the adult content settings under Your Details
• Select “Change” at the bottom of the page to change your settings.

Congratulations, you’ve turned off Orange Safeguard and can now browse freely!

If you’re with a different operator, why not contribute by telling us how you’ve done it or what limitations you face by default? Do they bother you or are the websites you need already whitelisted?

Ewan at SMS Text News reported in June that some airlines will now be allowing mobile phones to be used on board. Air France, BMI, Portuguese airline TAP and budget airline Ryanair are said to be some of the first to sign up for the service.

This brings up a number of public etiquette questions as passengers with different cultural backgrounds are forced to cohabit in a cramped space for a few hours. Imagine sitting amongst a flock of rowdy lads all chatting on their mobiles, or next to a businessman who feels the need to broadcast all of his dealings to the rest of the plane. However, there are undeniable benefits to being able to quickly text a friend to let them know where you’ll meet them for dinner once you’ve landed, or call to warn them that you’re still circling above Heathrow.

The cost of a call, however, might make for short conversations.

While OnAir does not set the fees, Lake said the expected cost would be around $2.50 per minute for calls and 50 cents per SMS message.

“Instead of roaming in a country, you are effectively roaming in the sky,” Lake said. “We send your call via satellite down to the GSM network.”

Call charges will appear on customer phone bills in an identical way to international roaming, with revenue shared between the airlines, OnAir and the customer’s own phone company.

At these rates, passengers are likely to limit their use to essential calls unless they’re feeling particularly flush with cash.

How do you feel about this? Would you prefer a relatively quiet flight, or the ability to conduct business as usual while on board?