Some thoughts on bandwidth

There is a text-only version of Google Maps! As was rightly pointed out, apart from being accessible, it's also quite handy for the bandwidth-aware users (like me on my mobile).

Re bandwidth - I realised that it works both ways. Heavy pages can be a nuisance for the mobile users due to slow download times and being expensive. Likewise, heavy pages mean more cost in terms of storage and bandwidth for the owners of a website. Here I'm not referring to sites like YouTube, where such requirements are inevitable. But I truly believe that one million byte home page for a news site or an email service is excessive.

Strange as it is in 2008, every megabyte of mobile internet browsing costs me £3 with o2. I can go for the "Unlimited" o2 bolt on for £7.50. This is of course much better, but few people realise that "Unlimited" only means up to 200MB or so, in accordance with o2's "fair use" policy. I'm sure mobile companies wouldn't have been able to get away with such pricing had there been more free public open hotspots (visit Estonia if you want to experience a free wi-fi heaven).

There are some positive changes though. The new bbc website is mobile device friendly. Now I can finally afford to Load All Content =) Let's hope that the others will follow.