Following some recent thoughts I’ve had on this subject I noticed that Rod Drury over in NS has similar frustrations with their local carriers. Late last year I moved across to the 3 network so that I could get an affordable data plan. Whilst the other carriers do offer data plans, they are all priced according to their GPRS data costs, which makes them prohibitively expensive for your average consumer.
Like Rod, I think we are on the cusp of a change in the way people think of their mobile phone – there are some who have got tired of all the new features and have decided to go back to basics with a phone that just takes calls and can send SMS messages. Then there are others like myself who are continually looking for the perfect balance between style, functionality, performance and of course battery life. This second group is where we are likely to see an influx in data rich applications – from those that just give you tv viewing guides through to more sophisticated applications that can give you the latest sales data for your organisation (for more information on this talk with the team at Intilecta). The important thing is that without affordable data these applications will not take off.