On the one hand, it makes life easier for mobile Internet users. On the other hand, it is potential cost trap for smartphone users who don’t about this and who don’t make the necessary arrangements in time. Subscribers of a cell phone plan of German operator O2 Germany do not need to configure the mobile Internet access by themselves. They can access the web via GPRS or UMTS over the O2 Germany network with any access point name (APN) or even without any APN. This means for example, they can put in a wrong APN or even manipulate a pre-set APN and will still access the Internet as soon as they open their smartphone’s web browser. That’s kind of nice.

However, certain applications on current smartphones rely on an open Internet connection. Examples of this are the push email service which delivers emails that have just landed in the inbox to the phone, the web browser and navigation services such as Google Maps. This may generate costs the smartphone user might not be aware of.

Smartphones with Internet, email, social networking and navigation functionalities are the latest in thing in the mobile market. I am assuming that not all people buying their first smartphone do know that many of these devices set up a mobile connection to the Internet. And on top of that, with some smartphones it is very complicated to switch off mobile data services separately. Take the new Android 2.1 smartphone Samsung Galaxy S I9000: In order to switch off mobile data services the user has to go to “APN Type” in the phone’s menu and change it from “Internet and MMS” to “MMS” - now it is not possible to connect to the web with the smartphone, while the user can still make phone calls. In contrast, users of the Sony Ericsson X10 can switch off mobile data services by just clicking a special button.

Therefore, I strongly recommend users of such smartphones to book a mobile data tariff in order to avoid high costs for mobile Internet access. O2 Germany is offering two different mobile data tariff options to smartphone users: Internet-Pack S with 30 MB for € 5.00 per month and the flat rate tariff Internet-Pack M with 200 MB for faster data transfers via EDGE, UMTS or HSPA for € 10.00 per month. This problem does not only occurs for subscribers of an O2 Germany price plan but also for customers of mobile phone providers using the O2 Germany network – like Hansenet (Alice Mobile) or Klarmobil.

Read also:

• Overview of Prepaid Mobile Data Price Plans for Smartphone Users

Read more about at www.teltarif.de (in German).