Give Mobile Phone Users A Browser… And They'll Browse.
This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to most people, but putting an actual web browser on a mobile phone means people will transmit more data. I’m not exactly sure why this “theory” needed testing, but that’s the finding of a Portuguese telecom operator who took the “daring” risk of putting a branded version of Opera’s browser, and discovered that when given a browser, people browsed (yes, a shocker). This gives even more support to the idea that users will not be satisfied with a “walled garden” of content only provided by the carrier. While they may want some specific customized applications – people clearly want the ability to access the same data they can reach via the web. Providing open access to the web at large, increases the value of the mobile phone as a data device, and makes it more likely that people will use it as such – even if the carriers can’t charge a toll for each bit of content.
