Archive for August, 2007

Fighting data cost

One of the main reasons people are reluctant to use mobile internet on a regular basis is said to be the cost of data over CSD,GPRS,EDGE, UMTS etc. Not necessarily because data traffic is expensive, but rather because people are not sure of the cost due to the carriers complex price models. The European Union has, by the EU Roaming Regulation , made an effort to reduce roaming charges. However, this regulation does not include roaming charges on data traffic. This means that it is up to the mobile operators to charge as they like for data traffic. In some counties the data traffic can be as high as 12 Euro pr megabyte. [edit: just found an article from Times Online] Fortunately some carriers have seen this problem as well.

So, the least we can do as developers is to keep the data traffic to a minimum.Here are some basic tips.

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Posted in stream |

Fighting data cost

One of the main reasons people are reluctant to use mobile internet on a regular basis is said to be the cost of data over CSD,GPRS,EDGE, UMTS etc. Not necessarily because data traffic is expensive, but rather because people are not sure of the cost due to the carriers complex price models. The European Union has, by the EU Roaming Regulation , made an effort to reduce roaming charges. However, this regulation does not include roaming charges on data traffic. This means that it is up to the mobile operators to charge as they like for data traffic. In some counties the data traffic can be as high as 12 Euro pr megabyte. [edit: just found an article from Times Online] Fortunately some carriers have seen this problem as well.

So, the least we can do as developers is to keep the data traffic to a minimum.Here are some basic tips.

read more

Posted in stream |

gzip test for mobiles

Data cost is known to be one of the main reasons for not using mobile internet. Or that is; the uncertainty of the data cost. So, why not help the user by doing as much as possible to cut the data transfer??

I have made a simple test site to illustrate the importance of this issue:

This is just a quick mock up using php. The test is only zipping the markup and not the style sheet and images on the page. However, it shows huge savings in data transfer!

The next interesting question is if the gain in speed of download is lost in extra processing time on the device…..

Tags: ,
Posted in code, stuff |

Meffy awards and Telenors football service

Heard about the Meffy Awards?
In their own words:
As the industry’s official benchmark for measuring success and rewarding innovation, the Meffys honour the most influential players from around the world.
So, in other words, MEF aims to reward good mobile services.

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Posted in stream |

Meffy awards and Telenors football service

Heard about the Meffy Awards?
In their own words:
As the industry’s official benchmark for measuring success and rewarding innovation, the Meffys honour the most influential players from around the world.
So, in other words, MEF aims to reward good mobile services.

read more

Posted in stream |