There are some interesting news from the CeBIT in Hannover, Germany (15.- 21. March 2007). The CeBIT is a leading business event for the digital world, and the mobile industry is an important part of the CeBIT. Especially this year is a lot of going on mobile + internet. Here are some facts:
T-Mobile:
T-Mobile has dramatically dropped their prices for mobile surfing. Here are the prices for their time- and volume-based rates.
time-based rates:
The time-based rate is called ”web’n’walk”. You only pay 0.09 EUR/minute for the “web’n’walk Starter” rate. There is neither a basic fee nor a volume limit. In August 2007 T-Mobile plans to offer the “web’n’walk Surfer” rate with 120 minutes for 5.00 EUR, which means 0.04 EUR/minute.
volume-based rates:
T-Mobile has also dropped the prices for their volume-based rates:
”web’n’walk BASIC”: 200 MByte for 20.00 EUR/month
”web’n’walk MEDIUM”: 400 MByte for 35.00 EUR/month
”web’n’walk LARGE”: 5 GByte for 50.00 EUR/month
Besides this T-Mobile also offers a ”E-Mail Flat”. You can send or receive as much emails as you want for a fixed price of 3.95 EUR/month. You can retrieve up to 5 email addresses through the T-Mobile server, but you can not send email attachments. T-Mobile then only shows the name of the attached file. Using this service you need a cellphone with POP3-enabled eMail client.

To make customers aware of their current web consumption T-Mobile from August 2007 will offer free pricing information via SMS. Customers will receive a SMS reminder for every 10 EUR they spent.

At the end of the year 2007 T-Mobile also plans to introduce a monthly limit to the total costs of mobile web usage. This upper barrier is supposed to be aroun 100,- Euro per month for web’n’walk in your home country and 200,- Euro if you are using it in foreign countries.
O2:
O2 offers a couple of new mobile (time- and volume-based) rates for their customers:
time-based rate:
For occasional usage of the mobile internet you only pay 0.03 EUR per minute if you are in your Home-Zone, and everywhere else only 0.09 EUR per minute.
volume-based rates:
Internet@home-Pack M: 1 GByte data volume for 10 EUR/month for using the mobile internet in the Home-Zone
Internet-PackM: 200 MByte data volume for 10 EUR/month (no Home-Zone restrictions)
Internet-Pack L: 5 GByte data volume for 25 EUR/month (no Home-Zone restrictions)

The minimum contract term of these rates is 3 months. You have to order the volume-based rates; the time-based rate is already activated in your contract.
Freenet:
Freenet also offers his customers a new mobile data flatrate. The mobile rate is called ”freenetMobile Mail & Surf”. For only 9.95 EUR/month you have unlimited access to the mobile web. But there is a catch: at the moment Freenet only offers this rate to BlackBerry owners.

Summary:
Seems like the big players actively follow the trend towards mobile web usage. Now it’s up to new service offerings to finally make a lot more people actually use the mobile web.

Sources: http://www.golem.de, http://www.zdnet.de, http://www.golem.de, http://www.golem.de, http://www.golem.de