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Mobile Web 2.0

Operators and handset manufacturers have been heralding the imminent arrival of the mobile web for some time. But in the words of the sage of Salford, Steven Morrissey, "How soon is now?"

Operators and handset manufacturers have been heralding the imminent arrival of the mobile web for some time. But in the words of the sage of Salford, Steven Morrissey, "How soon is now?"

[Summary of presentations at Internet World by Dermot O'Mahony, Head of Online Content at T-Mobile and Paul Walsh, CEO of Segala]

Dermot O'Mahony

According to comScore research, the mobile web is already here for a quarter of the population: 24 per cent of the UK population - 7.1mn people - already access the internet using their mobile phones. Alternative research from Forrester has predicted that by the end of the year, half of Europeans will have used their mobiles to get information from the web. Typically, they visit online portal sites such as Google Mobile or operators' own portal sites, both of which garnered 31 per cent of visits in the research.

However, trying out the mobile internet is by no means the same thing as making regular use of it, and there remains some resistance to the idea. According to T-Mobile's research there are three main reasons for this:

• Pages load too slowly (38%)
• Poor navigation on devices (27%)
• Mobile sites not available (25%)

However, 90 per cent of those polled said that they would use the mobile internet if these barriers were removed. O'Mahony contended that the perceived speed restrictions of internet access through mobiles were no longer true. Speeds of up to 1.8Mb/s are already available, with 3.6Mb/s connections to become available through 3G networks later this year. In 2008, speeds are expected to rise to 7.2Mb/s. In other words, the speeds are similar to what you can expect from your desktop connection for normal websites and rich media sites will very soon be perfectly usable.

Similarly, the perception that mobile internet use is extremely expensive is starting to become untrue. Depending on the operator, capped prices of £1 a day or £7.50 a month are already available, with bandwidth limits that will far exceed the typical user's needs.

O'Mahony concluded by noting that the real barriers to acceptance now lie in the accessibility and usability of websites, and that adhering to best practice guidelines in developing sites is now a priority.

Paul Walsh

Walsh defines mobile web 2.0 as access to the real web, the same web that you get when you load up your desktop browser. It certainly isn't WAP.

Not everybody understands that this is happening now. The decision by Mozilla to cease development of its mobile web browser two weeks ago seemed to Walsh to indicate a lack of understanding of what is going on.

People in the developing world will first access the Internet through mobile devices, not computers. Why? Because it's a lot cheaper to roll out mobile networks than it is to install fixed lines. Mobiles themselves are, of course, cheaper than PCs in addition.

There are certainly usage models for the sort of semi-internet services delivered through WAP and i-Mode browsers, such as finding out the time of the next train, but there are also usage cases for delivering the full web. Users should be given a choice.

Re-developing or developing mobile sites in parallel to sites aimed at desktop browsers may sound tremendously painful, but ought not to be if developers adhere to the best-practice guidelines being developed by the W3C. Following these guidelines, developers would create content once and then it would be rendered differently according to the device it is viewed on.

Walsh believes that Apple's iPhone will revolutionise the way in which people think about the mobile web. Apple has a knack for making things easy and once the mobile web is made easy on one device, it will disrupt the mobile industry.

However, another issue is the lack of standards in the development of browsers between phones. It's hard enough for developers to create sites that work in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari, without throwing in the multitudes of different ways in which mobile browsers work. Currently, the Opera Mobile and Nokia Series 60 browsers were viewed as delivering the best, standards-compliant experience, but it is certainly time for handset manufacturers to start to work together and adhere to standards.

Audience discussion concerned how operators are going to be able to make any money from this brave new world. Voice is already a commodity in some respects, with flat fees available, and unlimited usage likely before long. If data usage is also charged at a flat fee, then what impetus will operators have to encourage usage. The outlook is unclear, though it seems as though an advertising-supported model is likely to appear. Users don't mind there being adverts on television or the web, because they understand that that is what makes it able to operate as a business. The same ought to be true if adverts are displayed alongside their free, unlimited mobile web.