It’s really surprising how seemingly obvious things can cause amazement in people. The last couple of days have seen several mobile phone operators and content providers taking at the Mobile World Congress, 2008 in Barcelona, Spain, and some of the announcements and comments validate this belief.

Both O2 and Google have both commented in different ways about the volume of traffic that they are seeing that is being produced by the iPhone Google reports to be seeing 50 times the number of searches being carried out from the iPhone than from other mobile handsets, whilst O2 are monitoring ‘unheard of levels of mobile internet useage’

It would appear to be obvious that when you give people the ability to use a product, the iPhone, in an unfettered way, unlimited access, that people will take the opportunity to use it.

My current phone, Sony Ericcson K810i is fully capable of browsing the internet and using emial, in fact if you believe some of the iPhone detractors, more so because it is 3G enabled, but I rarely use it. Why? Because the input method is rubbish, the browser capability limited (though RSS works quite well even on such a small screen and most importantly, cost.

My package gives me 1mb of data per month, there after I have to pay £3 per mb I go over. This seriously stops me using the internet on my phone. I have been looking at using my phone for sat-nav, pairing it to my bluetooth GPS receiver and then using one of the compatible services, but because they download the map via 3G or GPRS, the cost of using this would be prohibitive.

So whilst the device may not be as good as some for using the internet and its associated services, its not the technology per se that holds back demand, but artificial limits placed on access by the operator, in my case also O2.

It reminds me of the argument that seemed to ensure that the UK was years behind most other countries when it came adopting ADSL.

Back in the days of 33kps modems, BT (British Telecom) had a virtual monopoly for all phone services, they were at the time heavily pushing ISDN as the future of home internet with a whopping 64K connection speed, or you could have dual lines fitted for 128K

Europe and the Far East were moving to ADSL at 256 and 512K but BT resisted all calls to adopt the same approach. There argument was very simple, why go to the cost and hassle of adopting ADSL when there is no content for users that demands such a fast network?

Of course the obvious reply to this, and as it turns out to be the case, is that if you give us the capacity to create the content, then we will fill it.

The findings being vocalised by O2 and Google only go to prove this.

So after a couple of years holding hands, Microsoft has finally decided to ‘marry’ Yahoo. Looking at the downward popularity of MSN and the near non-existence of live.com, this would appear to be the only thing that Microsoft can do to stem the seemingly stratospheric rise of Google

BBC NEWS | Business | Microsoft wants to purchase Yahoo: “Microsoft wants to purchase YahooMicrosoft and Yahoo are both struggling to compete with GoogleMicrosoft has offered to buy the search engine company Yahoo for $44.6bn (£22.4bn) in cash and shares.The offer, contained in a letter to Yahoo’s board, is 62% above Yahoo’s closing share price on Thursday.Yahoo cut its revenue forecasts earlier this week and said it would have to spend an additional $300m this year trying to revive the company.It has been struggling in recent years to compete with Google, which has also been a competitor to Microsoft.”(Via .)BBC NEWS | Business | Microsoft wants to purchase Yahoo

This would seem to by in with Steve Ballmers comments last year that Microsoft would seek to by up to 20 companies each year, although this substantially goes over the $50m to $1bn dollar price tag he seemed to mention.

Ballmer: I will buy 20 web companies a year | The Register: “”(Via .)Ballmer: I will buy 20 web companies a year | The Register