The Future of Mobile?
26 October 2009
There was a general sense of optimism - and quite a lot of excitement - at yesterday's Westminster eForum on the Future of Mobile. The strapline ‘More than Talk....' aptly summed up much of the sense of the discussion, with ‘aps' (applications) very much the buzz term. Aps of the future varied from using your mobile as a check-out device at supermarkets to the Chinese authorities using mobile to keep track of sheep in the more remote parts of their country; and it's worth noting the extraordinarily high levels of mobile penetration in some of the most underdeveloped parts of the world, including sub-Saharan Africa.
In a session on the future of regulation, I introduced something of a reality check on behalf of the Consumer Panel, reminding the audience of the Panel's work on consumer concerns relating to mobile coverage here and now, in the UK.
Of course, the mobile industry has been very successful in developing over the years, against a framework of relatively light touch regulation, to the extent that the mobile device is now central to our lives; but with centrality comes responsibility and there remain issues to be resolved. In addition to truly reliable coverage, consumers want good and better information; better complaints handling; a better process for porting numbers - to name just a few. Kevin Russell, the Chief Executive, 3, who was the keynote speaker, made a particular plea that the high level of termination charges should be tackled.
Several speakers echoed one of the Panel's concerns that, with the range of services available from a mobile device, a number of different regulators might be involved - Ofcom, PhonePayPlus, the ASA, the Financial Services Authority, the Gambling Commission and others. Regulators need to agree that one will take ownership of a customer's issue when it cuts across more than one regulator's area of responsibility.
Regulation should protect consumers while delivering the competition and innovation that is ultimately in their best interests. Industry has the opportunity to tackle consumer concerns and avoid the need for overly intrusive regulation going forward.