BPN 1042 1-in-5 Dutch internet users mobile online

According to the Dutch central statistics bureau (CBS), more than 2 million Dutch internet users went online with mobile devices, such as laptop or a smart phone, in 2007. That is almost 20 per cent of all the Dutch internet users. Especially male users and highly educated young professionals are mobile online. The internet connection is mostly made by 13 per cent of the internet users with a laptop, equipped with a mobile modem; 8 per cent use a smart phone and only 3 percent is using a palmtop.

Of the men going online 24 per cent accesses internet by mobile connection. Of women only 14 percent linked to internet by mobile. Men use mobile online more often than women, 12 per cent against 4 per cent. But more than 30 per cent of the highly educated professionals, younger than 45 years, use mobile equipment online over against 7 percent of older and low trained people. Of course this pattern in mobile online is also common to fixed line internet.

Mobile internet will be much helped by mobile broadband. Market research bureau Forrester published recently a report with a forecast: 2007 saw mobile operators upgrading their 3G networks to 3.5G. At the same time, mobile operators started to introduce flat-rate mobile Internet access on a wider scale. To see if consumers will sign up for these services, we updated our Western European mobile user forecast. To do this, we interviewed mobile operators and vendors about the state of the market and analyzed consumer data. 3G will take the lead over GSM-only and GPRS phones in 2010. By the end of 2013, one-quarter of mobile phone users will have 3.5G-capable device. By that time, we expect 38% of mobile subscribers to use mobile Internet services at least once per month.

But Forrester also noted that the growing popularity of mobile internet is deopendent on mobile broadband. It forecasts that in 2010 more smart phone with a UMTS- (3G) or HSDPA (3,5G) connection will be sold over the slower GPRS ones. Of course also attractive subscription for mobile internet will be helpful. The mobile companies should take care of lumpsum subscriptions, more relevant services and a better user experience.
According to the Forrester researchers, Austria, Italy, UK and the Scandinavian countries are the precursors. It is expected that in 2010 more than 60 percent of the internet users in those countries have access to a fast mobile broadband connection. In Japan, The Register noted that from 2012 onwards only 3G connections will be offered by the telco NTT Docomo. From January this year the telcos have stopped to sell devices using a slower access speed.

Blog Posting Number: 1042

Tags: mobile internet

Cellular eReader

Telecom Italia and Polymer Vision today announced an agreement which will see the leading operator of the Italian mobile industry and the pioneers of the rollable display industry join to develop and launch the world’s first rollable display enabled mobile device to market in 2007.












Today the innovative terminal will be presented to the mobile industry as a world first at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona from February 12th (booth in Hall 2, D 06). The device uses the unique Polymer Vision rollable display technology which enables mobile devices to incorporate a display larger than the handset itself and offers a readability similar to printed paper. The product follows up on the rollable display technology based concept device Readius® presented by Polymer Vision less than 18 months ago at the IFA Consumer Electronics Trade Fair in Berlin.

While smaller than a typical mobile phone, the new device features a display which extends up to 5-inches and may simply be stored away after use by folding it, thanks to the flexibility of the polymer based display material. The device features the largest display available in the industry for the same form factor, the 16 grey levels combined with a high contrast and high reflectivity display for paper like reading experience enables comfortable reading, even in bright sunlight. Future developments include colour and moving image capable display.

The rollable display enables reading entire newspapers as well as books that can be delivered and bought through TIM’s mobile network via a regular SIM Card within the device - and then stored in the terminal’s memory which will be extremely large (starting from 4 Gigabytes available in the first models). Combined with TIM’s mobile services, the device will permit instant access to personalised data, e-mail, news, information feeds and location sensitive maps wherever and whenever. The always-on user experience is made possible through an optimised combination of cellular (EDGE/UMTS) and broadcast (DVB-H IP data-casting) mobile functionalities as well as a mini-USB slot for PC and wired/wireless broadband data connection.

Together with superior text and graphic content, the new device will also download and play music, audiobooks and audio podcasts. Featuring single-handed navigation and control via an innovative touch sensitive LED user interface, as well as intuitively simple software, users will enjoy a new unique experience in managing, accessing relevant and personalized high value content. With the extremely low power consumption of the display, the new device will deliver an exceptional 10 days of average usage time between battery charges.

The rollable display is based on the e-Ink technology. Part of the screen-substrate technology and the wireless technology has been developed by Philips and has been spun out to iRex Technologies, which produces the eReader iLiad, and to Polymer Vision.

Blog Posting Number: 662

Tags: 3G, UMTS, eReader, iliad, iliad, digital paper