One major barrier to mobile data services usage in the U.K. will come tumbling down this summer. Vodafone will join T-Mobile and 3 this summer in offering its customers flat-rate data subscriptions, New Media Age reports. Vodafone is tight-lipped about the details, but it is believed the operator will abandon its current offer, which lets users access on-portal service for free, and charge users a daily or monthly fee for unlimited access to on-portal, off-portal and the wider mobile Web.

Vodafone may reason the shift is to benefit its 4.5 million Vodafone Live! users, but the operator has other motives for its recent shift in mindset. Vodafone has to develop a new portal approach and an overarching strategy to make sense – and money – out of its advertising deal with Yahoo and its tie-up with Google. The article argues working with Google will “allay fears that by opening up the wider internet it could fall into the same trap as ISPs and become a dumb bit pipe.” Not sure if that comes from a Voda exec or the author, but I fail to see how working specifically with Google – or any other search engine - can de facto assure the operator a center spot in this emerging value web. It’s all down to how players share the data and the revenues. Indeed, many operators and observers tell me a battle brewing between all service providers and all search providers over the all-important customer analytics. The party that loses will likely become a pipe in the end.
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