The future of the mobile Internet

This week's highlighted research:

Forrester. "Japan leads mobile web use globally."

Telephia. "Telephia customer value metrics."

Ambient Insight. "The US market for mobile learning products and services: 2006-2011 forecast and analysis."

The Shosteck Group. "The portal wars: Where next for the mobile Internet? The emergence of the personal Internet."

I've come across Internet cafes in the most unusual places around the world. I've visited such cafes in Laos, where the connection was slow and the coffee strong. To that country's south, Bangkok seems to have one on every street corner, but probably the one I enjoyed most was the one in a small town in Poland where they served beer along with your Internet connection. To date, the concept of the Internet cafe has been my experience with "mobile Internet." But the industry is trying hard, but with limited success, to take it to the next level. The gold standard of mobile Internet is the ability to take it with you wherever you go.

I envision a small device, which would still be big enough to contain a functional keyboard that folded out, but still small enough to carry around comfortably. It would also have a comfortable display screen, from which you could surf the regular Internet, and not be limited to inch-square interfaces that are customized for cell phone interfaces. Of course, it would have to be wireless, and there would have to be universal wireless access from anywhere in the world. If I'm riding on the new high-speed train from Beijing to Tibet, I want to be able to use it. And of course, it should be cheap. We're not there yet, but when the techies over in Silicon Valley can come up with this, they'll have my dollar.

Forrester says adoption of mobile devices, and access to mobile data, is growing in developed countries around the world. However, their report notes that most consumers are limited to things like text messaging, with mobile Internet still being very limited in every country. Japan is the leader in usage of mobile Internet, but worldwide, it's still in its infancy. Telephia's optimistic report notes that mobile data services reached the halfway mark for adoption by the end of 2005, but again, most of that is text messaging on cell phones, which only grazes the surface of what it could be.

Telephia's report said 22 percent of cell phone users paid for Web access via their wireless devices during the fourth quarter. Not surprisingly, those consumers who do access the Web from a mobile device prefer a monthly package, rather than a pay-as-you-go plan. There is a perception that mobile Web access is too expensive without a monthly data package.

According to Ambient Insight, one of the most rapidly emerging applications for the mobile Internet is mobile learning. Their report notes that the biggest consumers of mobile learning will be the public sector, followed by consumers. Several factors will contribute to the growth of this sector, including the growth of wireless, the presence of handheld devices with mobile browsers, and rollout of fixed wireless broadband services such as WiMAX. And towards my dream of universal wireless access, Ambient's report hints at that accomplishment with a description of a 4G service called frequency handoff, which would allow a mobile device to find any available wireless data stream, and choose the next one to accommodate the user.

Shosteck Group's report describes the mobile Internet as actually something else, which it calls the "Personal Internet," a new paradigm and perhaps more accurate way of describing what mobile Internet will ultimately become. Shosteck notes that the lack of standardization and reach has held back mobile Internet. Calling the current state of the mobile Internet a sort of "walled garden," they foresee a future where users will have more control over their access and interaction with content, devices and services. They envision a Personal Service Portal, which would go beyond those mobile services that provide only limited content to the subscriber.