Wait, I Have To Pay For This?
A writer out of Hong Kong has come to the conclusion there that operators will profit from 3G, if only people would start using the service — if for no other reason than they have to pay for just about everything. He’s dismayed, “flabbergasted” actually, that everything’s got a per-use fee attached, and implies the pricing doesn’t offer much value. It’s a good point, one that operators seem to forget sometimes when they promise high-speed networks as making the mobile Internet a reality. When they build up user expectations that they’ve got the Internet on their phones, users expect certain things — like the plethora of free content that’s available over their wired Net connections at home, not a per-use fee for every tiny thing. At least on the operator’s 3G network, surfing the portal, which is little more than a content shopping mall, is free. Evidently 2G users have to pay for the privelege of looking around the store.
