It seems Europeans just can’t get enough of mobile data at the moment. According to the GSMA, the market for mobile data skyrocketed by 40 percent to by €7 billion in 2007 while in the year to April 2008, the number of 3G users in the EU doubled to 112 million.
And guess what’s spurred all this take-up? Yep, cheaper prices for both the necessary kit and for the connection itself, with the GSMA reckoning that the cost of data roaming in the EU dropped by 25 percent in the year to April 2008 while European roaming traffic jumped by traffic grew 75 percent in the same time. The GSMA is also predicting that prices will fall further.
All good news, obviously, but with mobile broadband now definitely mature, I’d like to put in a request for the operators: can we have more tariffs where a single data bundle can be shared between a number of devices (phone, dongle, laptop, 3G-connected digital camera etc) with just one bill? Please?