At this year's CeBIT trade show in Hanover, Vodafone announced it will offer a flat-rate data plan for European roaming users - all the data you can eat, including web and email usage, for €12 per day.
No one can deny it's a step in the right direction and an obvious one to take. Mobile operators have been sweating profusely since European commissioner Vivianne Reding announced she was going to come down hard on them after they'd procrastinated long enough about cutting the cost of voice calls made abroad.
The commissioner has a steely glint in her eye and has dropped a few hints that she'd like to see mobile data go the same way. Whether or not the data question will make it into the next round of legislation is debatable but Reding is unquestionably sinking her teeth into this bone.
As with voice, as soon as carriers got a whiff of which way the wind was blowing, they did their best to appease the Commission, in an effort to head off potential regulation. One wonders whether, if Reding had not mentioned data, Vodafone would not have been quite so keen to offer cheaper roaming rates. O2 has also said it intends to cut foreign data costs.
So, €12 per day is a step in the right direction. But it's a baby step. Businesses deserve a better deal.
Businesses want a Tesco approach to mobile data - pile it high, sell it cheap. Mobility is a huge deal for corporate users and it's fair to say most individuals who have used a datacard with any frequency would rather lose a toe than give it up - something the operators should celebrate, rather than penalise.
The mobile marketing men have long since tried to persuade us that it's not 3G or 3.5G - it's 'mobile broadband'.
But the name is all that has changed. Operators have not changed their thinking nor tried to ape the commoditisation process that has seen fixed broadband prices plummet to such a degree that connectivity verges on the gratis.
Vodafone should be saluted for cutting roaming bills from what could be potentially hundreds of pounds to €12. But enterprises spend so much on data already, it would do well to give them a break with lower costs still. This is a price/volume game - the lower the data costs get, the more 'mobile broadband' will be used - putting operator and enterprise user in a win-win situation.
