I’m a Vodafone UK customer. I have opted-in to their special European data roaming deal that gives me 25mb of roaming data per day, in return for £2.

Now that’s cheap. Very cheap, when Vodafone will normally take £1 per megabyte from me without thinking.

Unfortunately, Vodafone’s Price Plan Cretins (known in the business as VPPC’s) decided that after this 25mb daily allowance, I will be billed an excruciating £1 per megabyte.

So they’ve almost got it working nicely. I suspect that the viewpoint from the VPPC committee is that 25mb should be enough for anyone to ‘use the internet on their phone’ in a given day.

My primary handset is a BlackBerry Bold 9780 (running 6.0 of RIM’s OS). RIM know what they’re doing in the context of mobile data compression technology. Sanyu Kiruluta from RIM’s EMEA Developer team made that perfectly clear when we put her on camera to discuss ‘the data capacity crunch’ a few months ago.

One of her key points:

“We tell developers: Only send the necessary data, only send it when necessary.”

This philosophy is, I believe, born of the fact that when RIM were starting out, data was a scare commodity. You had to make really good use of the available GPRS bandwidth. You had to allow for continual service interruptions and for poor network bandwidth. So RIM optimised the hell out of everything.

Let me highlight just how important this is for the mobile marketplace.

You see it is very, very easy to get rather frustrated with the mobile network operators for not delivering in today’s always-on culture. It’s really easy to get annoyed by the stupid battery consumption problems that almost any modern smartphone suffers from. I regularly explode at my network operator’s inability to deliver me service when I need it. I am continually banging the table (at industry roundtables) demanding a ‘boost button’ so that I can get prioritised data access services so that my connection will be faster, when I need it.

I really cannot stand sitting on the bus and watching my bandwidth from the cell seem to disappear almost immediately when the teenager sitting across from me flips open his bog-standard smartphone and starts streaming an HD Youtube video. For no apparent reason, other than he’s bored.

“That’s not an efficient use of the mobile network infrastructure,” I scream. To myself.

I remember being at an HP roundtable a while ago — years ago. One of the tech guys there wanted to illustrate just how fragile our mobile infrastructure was. He got four Nokia N95s, all on the same network. He then proceeded to make a video call between a pair of them. All was fine. The picture was excellent. He then got the other pair fired up and tried to connect them on their own video call. Everything went to shit. The original video call began to break. The new video call couldn’t show any video signal at all. I could virtually feel things breaking at the local cell tower. This was a few years ago.

Things are a little better now.

The mobile networks have invested substantially in shoring up their data capacity capabilities. It was o2 UK, if memory serves, that recently announced it was spending something like a million pounds a day building out it’s network in the wake of the meltdown caused by so many iPhones blindly shooting their data loads all over the place.

Just how bad is the data demand from a smartphone? Well, there are all sorts of facts and figures around that we could resort to. We could quote the ‘average’ smartphone data usage. We could argue or support Vodafone’s 25mb daily roaming limit — is this 25mb limit a perfect allocation of data for your average consumer? Quite possibly. I doubt my mother would use more than that in a given day.

But having set out the semi-interlinked points above, let’s get to the main point of today’s post: The flipping Google Nexus S.

I went out and spunked the cash on Samsung’s Nexus S. It was, I reasoned, about time I had a proper up-to-date Android phone. There are plenty of test ones around MIR Towers, but I thought I needed to have one to play with and experience.

I’ve been doing just that. Now and again I take the SIM card out of my BlackBerry and stick it into the Nexus.

I’ve not had much time to do anything to the Nexus, beyond setup my Gmail (3 accounts) and have a quick look around the phone. I’ve downloaded one or two apps from the Marketplace — and I’ve installed a beta version of Swype to replace the dire standard on-screen keyboard.

That’s the extent of the configuration.

The first flaw with the Nexus S is that, if you use it the way you’re meant to do, the battery hits 50% before you can type ‘mobileindustryreview’. My annoyance at this experience is only heightened by the helpful Android fanatics who feel obliged to point out that I’m, “doing it wrong.” I need to switch off real-time email delivery, apparently. That, “chews a lot of battery”, I’m told. Duh. And, “you should put your screen brightness down loads.” That is another genuine suggestion from a 35-year old IT expert I know.

Well, obviously. I only used to get through the day with my T-Mobile G1 Android phone by using one of those power saving apps that basically switched everything off, from the WiFi to the screen. It effectively bricked the device continually unless I specifically wanted to use it, at which point, the app would scream and scream as the battery dripped charge.

I refuse to do this with a £500 handset.

It is not the battery that’s the problem for me though.

Oh no.

It’s the sodding data use.

I’ve been coming to France for two days a week for the last three months. Vodafone’s 25mb for £2 days deal has been keeping me going. The moment I enter France and the BlackBerry selects a new network, I get the friendly ‘hello, you’ve got 25mb’ message from Vodafone.

And that’s all I get from Vodafone, despite giving the BlackBerry a good amount of data use throughout the day.

The Bold has four email accounts constantly being updated. Three Gmail accounts, one BlackBerry ‘Instant’ email account. The BlackBerry Twitter super-app is live and updating every 20 minutes. Google Maps is constantly monitoring my location. Smrtguard is pinging the server to keep an eye on my phone’s location (and doing a backup every evening). Google’s own Gmail app is always live and pinging. I use that to access my 20gig email archive as necessary across the day. BeReader updates regularly across the hour, keeping my Google Reader feed updated and ready for review. SmartWiFi sits in the background monitoring my cell location — when I get home or when I get to my hotel (where there’s a WiFi network), the app switches on my WiFi and begins routing all my traffic across that connection. Text messages are flying in and out. And BlackBerry Messenger typically runs read hot most days.

Now then, battery wise, the BlackBerry will typically last a full day. On some particularly heavy days, especially when I’m using the telephone portion of the device, the Bold will get to 11pm with about 20% battery. It’ll go a further few hours before the horrible RED battery display appears — then it really does need a charge.

The key point? I get full usage out of it.

But what about the data?

Well I don’t actually know. What I can tell you is that I never, ever get a message from Vodafone saying I’ve gone over 25mb in a given day, when I’m roaming. Never.

If I was sending copious amounts of photos, I suspect I could force my device to exceed the 25mb roaming limit, but my normal heavy usage never seems to break it.

Can you guess what happened with the Samsung Nexus S?

Yeah. It’s not good.

The Eurostar arrived out of the tunnel into France and the Nexus S switched on to the local French network. I got the familiar text from Vodafone letting me know I was now eating into my 25mb of allowance and that they’d charged me £2.

About an hour later, I arrived in Paris. I got into a taxi and as we pulled away, I got another text from Vodafone. I’d used up my 25mb allowance already and I was now burning £1 per meg.

I was astonished. I quickly checked Google Maps to see what route the taxi driver was taking. Boom: I got a text to let me know I’d blown £5.

And my Nexus S battery was down to 53%.

To be clear I’d hardly used the phone. It had been in my pocket since I’d entered France.

I was astonished.

This, then, is the difference between a BlackBerry and an Android device. I can only assume that the BlackBerry’s proprietary compression and communications layer is ridiculously efficient and that the Nexus S is behaving as though it’s connected to WiFi and sucking as much data as it wants.

Of course, I know the solution. I need to switch off the mail sync. I need to effectively prevent the Nexus from doing anything. Indeed switching off the data roaming capability would probably be the best way ahead — and then I could switch it on when I need to check my email. But goodness me I wonder if checking my email would actually end up using a few meg? If that means syncing contacts, calendars and mail, for all three accounts, every single time?

I suppose I could try using the mobile web to check my email when I’m abroad using the Nexus S. That would at least limit the data usage to a distinct refresh.

Goodness knows what it’s doing when I have it on in the UK? The Nexus S must be burning through 100mb a day just sitting there.

This is why I continue to use a BlackBerry.

No wonder the mobile networks are having problems coping with the ‘data crunch’. I wonder if operators concerned about increasing network demands should be heavily discounting BlackBerries for their subscribers to help keep the pain away.

The nice chaps at Mobile Entertainment magazine ran my ‘Fear The Googlepipe‘ opinion-piece yesterday morning. Did you catch it?

It’s based on a post I did a little while ago about the launch of the arrival of the Nexus One and what that could mean for your common-or-garden mobile operator. I say ‘based’, but the guys at Mobile Entertainment — proper media — have sprinkled some editorial dust and turned the original wail into a half decent looking piece. Thank you ME!

Here’s the first bit…

Well that was a day to remember. The day Google got stuck into mobile merchandising and nailed the mobile operator to the wall.

That’s it: thank you for coming, mobile operators! You did your best. But now you’ve been ‘owned’.

That’s it: thank you for coming, mobile operators! You did your best. But now you’ve been ‘owned’.

Well, maybe not yet. But do look out for the big G. With the Nexus One, Google has ushered in an entirely new way of buying a consumer handset: from its website in six clicks. Shit! Is it that simple?

Continue at Mobile Entertainment –>

Thank you to the delicious people who retweeted it — including the Infomob chaps, Mitcan, SLAMobile, Peggy Anne, Martin Wilson, Radek and MEF.

That’s it: Thank you for coming, mobile operators, thank you for coming. You did your best. But now you’ve been ‘owned’. Well.. not yet. But do look out for the big G.

With the Nexus One, Google has ushered in an entirely new way of buying a consumer handset: From their website in 6 clicks.

Shit!

Is it that simple? Yes.

You visit Google.com/phone and select your financing option. You either buy your phone outright, or you get it financed by a bankmobile operator that also supplies your voice and data connection.

If you’d like a Nexus One — Google’s newest device — they’re shipping right now. You buy it from Google. Not from your operator.

Your operator is an also-ran. The operator has been relegated to bit-part status in the new Google process. It’s like choosing whether you want to pay with MasterCard or Visa. It doesn’t make much difference. Indeed you can never remember if your Capital One is Visa or MasterCard… pull it out your wallet — oh, it’s Visa — right then, Visa it is.

It won’t be long until I’ll just pay Google. I mean, what is the sodding point messing around choosing operators when Google just sorts it out.

Yes, we’ve had decades and billions of marketing dollars spent making sure we ‘care’ what operator we select. But, again — like any commodity, the reality is there isn’t much difference between operators. Who do you buy your electricity from? In the UK, the market has been opened to competition so instead of one supplier for an area, you can actually choose to pay a whole array of different suppliers. Most people stick with what’s easiest.

When it comes to google.com/phone, that’s what a lot of consumers will do.

I think it’ll be a little while before consumers — the normobs, the Great Unwashed — descend on and begin relying upon Google.com/phone for their telecommunications needs.

You can see it happening though.

You can see the strategy.

If you, as an operator, are not on the Google.com/phone page, then you’ve got a problem. 100% of people buying through this mechanism will never, ever choose you.

And Vodafone’s done the European deal, it seems.

Soon you’ll be able to buy all manner of handsets through Google.com/phone. All through a nice slick 6-step interface and powered by your Google Checkout account.

There are pitfalls of course. Your average mobile operator is — by now — pretty good at dealing with fulfilment. If I phone 3 at 11am on Monday and arrange for a new handset, provided it’s in stock, it’ll be at my door by 9am on Tuesday. Operators also have the rest of the fulfilment stream managed reasonably well. How will Google handle returns? Can I phone Google and complain about lack of T-Mobile signal? Where does my relationship lie with the transaction?

The overriding issue with Google is that they don’t give a stuff about the mobile operator. The mobile operators are standing in Google’s way. Google’s focus is — as commented via the Gizmodo coverage of the live event today — mobile advertising revenue. They are making a small margin on unit sales, but, “making sure people get access to Google services and get online is their #1 priority.”

To put this in perspective, here’s another quote from today’s event:

People search the web 30x more on an Android phone than they do on a feature phone.

The concept is not surprising. A shitfeature phone is rubbish for searching online. Oh the browser can handle displaying Google, but when it comes to anything else — and in particular, browsing search results featuring Google Ads — the devices are useless.

The fact Google report 30x more searches is quite surprising. Yet I can believe that figure. And goodness me when you start counting the billions of dollars of mobile ad revenue to be had over the next 5-10 years, yeah… Google definitely needed to wade into the existing marketplace more or less hampered by the operators.

Putting Google as the search engine of choice on the operator portal has been useful, no doubt. But I can certainly understand this strategy. If anything it points to the commercial imperative Google feels as they analyse the growth and potential of the mobile world.

Fascinating times.

If you’d like to read Google’s viewpoint, the team over at the Official Google Blog have prepared an overview of today’s announcement. It really does make interesting reading, especially when you read between the lines. Here it is: Our new approach to buying a mobile phone.

Like most mobile geeks, I’m really enjoying all the Google Nexus One news; it’s starting to sound like a very nice device, and it’s obviously a very interesting move by Google. Seeing their vision of what a modern mobile device should be — and how far Google feel they can push their services into our pockets will be fascinating to see.

I’ve already pretty much decided that I’m going to give the Nexus One / HTC Passion — or whatever it ends up being called — a miss though. Not because I’m a total Apple fanboy, or because I’m one of those crazies worried about giving Google too much access to my data – I’m a very heavy user of all of Google’s services, and have been ever since I opened my first Gmail account back in 2005.

Why the reluctance then?  Android has many positives – mobile Gmail is great, Google Maps on Android is better than on iPhone, multitasking rocks and Android’s notification system is just plain brilliant.  But at the end of the day – from my experience (G1, HTC Magic and HTC Hero) – Android is actually a pretty sucky phone.

I think Ewan hit the nail on the head yesterday:

My biggest concern with Google is their apparent inability to bring anything to market that is actually ready for consumers to use. I’m talking, of course, about the perennial ‘beta’ labels that populate their technology. This beta policy makes a ton of sense — and I think the majority of geeks like me are thoroughly delighted to see the company make frequent updates to their services. I wonder, then, how they’re reacting to delivering a physical product that can’t be changed.

To say that the Android phone experience is a bit unpolished (even when tarted up by HTC) would be a massive complement; take the iPhone away from your ear to “press option 3 to speak to an advisor” and the screen lights up ready for use – easy!  Try the same trick with an HTC Hero and the screen will have locked.  Go to press the phones usual screen unlock key and you’ll often have killed the call.   It’s this kind of thoughtfulness that I think Android phones will always lack, mainly because Android devs don’t have a maniacal Steve Jobs standing over them yelling – “not good enough, do it again.”

The iPhone might have limitations — and the App approval process does appear to make some rather perverse decisions — but Apple’s rigid control of the platform undoubtedly makes it slicker.  We had to wait far too long for ‘copy and paste’ to appear, but when it did it was perfect.  Does any other device honestly have this feature implemented as well as the iPhone?

I’m also rather dubious about one of the Nexus One’s really big selling points — availability as a carrier unlocked device.  If this is true I really applaud the move, it could be a watershed moment for the telco industry, but I’m just not sure Google will be able to pull this off.  They don’t have consumer goods distribution experience; I suppose they could rely on HTC’s sales channels, but this would be a really big ask.   Google has previously given away unlocked Android devices to developers only, could they be dong the same with the Nexus One, planning to release the device to the public via one of the carriers (my money would be on T-Mobile)?

Then there is my final nagging doubt; good as the Nexus One may be, in my mind it’s really a second generation future mobile device (1st gen = iPhone, 2nd gen = iPhone 3G/3GS).   I’m sure it will stack up well against the iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre etc, but really we’re still watching Android play catch-up.

I still predict that the really big mobile news of 2010 will be the major update Apple announces to the iPhone platform in June, so for the meantime I’m sticking with Apple.