According to many sources, one of the greatest factors to inhibit the use of mobile internet is the speeds that are available. When a person has a benchmark against which to measure a service then the newer service needs to provide better results or additional features that make it more attractive. In the case of the mobile internet many people already have a faster connection from their home of office computer.
This leaves the mobile internet to provide services that will attract new users, but there is only so much of a gap in speed that the features such as mobility can cover. Unfortunately at the moment the gap is too great for most people, particularly for those people who use GPRS services. The introduction of 3G cards was trumpeted as the arrival of competitively high speeds, but for many this turned out to be untrue. One of the greatest factors working for the benefit of mobile internet is that new products and technologies are constantly being produced.
All service providers are currently trying to increase the speed of their bandwidth to attract additional customers. One of the problems is mobile internet will constantly be compared to standard broadband speeds and be found wanting. The rates that are charged by the service providers, such as T-mobile or Orange, are also higher for comparative speeds than fixed line broadband providers are. Since different service providers offer different packages people do have a choice, but often it is viewed as a choice of the lesser of two evils.
The number of mobile phones that are capable of surfing the net is increasing very quickly as it quickly becomes an expected feature on new mobile phones being released. The majority of service providers still focus on providing data cards for laptops though. This is attributed to the inability of many phones to browse the internet at a sufficiently fast rate for users. One of the greatest problems when browsing the internet on a mobile phone is the tiny size of the screen.
This has lead to an increasing number of people who are now designing their web sites so that it is possible to get a vaguely decent browsing experience. This entails coding the site so that it will be easier to view than standard sites on a mobile phone screen. Until such time as all sites are set up in this way the speed of the mobile internet will be less important. Who cares if a page can load quickly if you can’t see it properly when it has loaded?