In a press release, the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation yesterday announced how mobile broadband data consumption in Denmark increased seven-fold between H1 2007 and H2 2007. This finding originates from the not-yet-published half year telecom statistics compiled by the Danish National IT and Telecom Agency.

In other words, the mobile internet is happening in Denmark - a fact that answers some of the questions I have been pondering lately.

The proliferation of 3G USB modem-dongles of course accounts for a big chunk of this traffic, but I am sure last fall's price war on 3G data tariffs has a big impact too. The numbers will tell once the half year statistic is eventually published and it becomes possible to drill down on the data.

And what is more, this is just the beginning since the 3G price war only really started to pick up in December (and is ongoing), and since the handsets coming out this year are basically all HSDPA (Turbo 3G) capable…

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For some time, I have been pondering the question of how the "mobile internet" (a label I dislike, but by it I mean HSDPA aka Turbo 3G networks) will impact mobile phone usage in general, and specifically the company I work for?

Theoretically, the "mobile internet" has been around for years in the form of GPRS and "old" (384 kbps) 3G, but in reality things really kick off with the 1+ mbps achievable on HSDPA networks. Seems to me something similar to what happened when we went from 56kbps dial-up to broadband on the PC will happen, but what specifically?

I am in particular concerned about how fast the mobile internet will pick up and how it will affect the tradeoffs between mobile applications (native or Java ME) and web applications? We do both at OnlineCity - probably with an emphasis on mobile applications since slow networks and crappy browsers have historically rendered the mobile browser a pretty poor platform. But if mobile web application usage picks up - and what drives the uptake? - should we then shift our focus? Not only are web applications easier to develop and maintain - they are much easier to distribute. No application download or installation - both of which are user deterrents…

I ended up doing a presentation at work last week, addressing some of these questions and I would like to put forward the gist of the presentation in this post. Before I get to that, however, I should like to mention what a few other people have written on the subject.

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Phew! My new job does not leave me with much energy for blogging - but it did provide me with the opportunity to have sort of an epiphany this week: Mobile broadband (HSDPA aka Turbo 3G) is serious competition to WiMAX, hotspot providers, and other network connectivity technologies for "on the go".

The occasion was a product presentation in another part of country. Basically as I walked out the door of the office my boss threw me this dongle from "3" and told me to use it if I wanted to do some work on the train. I did, and I have to say it is one of the most hassle-free pieces of technology I have used in a long time. Not only that, network coverage is great her in Denmark (on their website, "3"  claim to cover 84% of the population) - I used the dongle on a 2 hour car ride (as passenger) and a 2 hour train journey and I do not remember losing the signal once. Yes, the quality of the signal varied, but I never lost it and it never became intolerably slow (unlike GPRS).

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