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Opera Mini comes to the rescue for summer surfing
June 2010 by Marc Jacob
This summer, European mobile users can travel more safely, knowing that mobile data charges will not cost them a fortune. Citing extreme examples such as a German mobile customer with a data bill exceeding 40,000 Euros, the EU has now placed safeguards to prevent similar incidents.
By setting a mandatory data-spending limit to 50 Euros, the European Commission seeks to ease the minds of travelers using their phones’ data capabilities while traveling. The cap can be increased or decreased as the consumer wishes. However, all mobile subscriptions within the EU will start out with the 50-Euro cap from July 1 this year.
Putting a cap on data roaming does not have to be the end of web surfing while traveling. With the right tools on your mobile phone, you can still get a full web experience and keep the data usage down.
The Opera Mini mobile-phone browser, available for free on practically any mobile phone, reduces the amount of data necessary to display a full webpage on your mobile phone. With this compression, the user gets more pages served within the limit than other uncompressed mobile browsers.
Stay social while traveling
While traveling in Europe with a European mobile subscription provider, resources such as Tripadvisor, your email provider and social networks are now safely within reach. Using Opera Mini to access social-networking sites as Facebook, Twitter, Bebo and more is easy and much cheaper than using native browsers.
Get information on the road
Having a minor hurdle in your vacation is no longer a showstopper with constant access to the Internet and a world of webpages available. With Opera Mini, getting map and hotel updates on the road doesn’t need to be expensive. In Opera’s survey, the travel webpage Lonely Planet gets compressed to just over 10% of its original size, keeping surfing cost down.
An example:
With webpages such as BBC News, a normal web browser will display a BBC News page roughly 131 of times before reaching the preset limit of data usage. Using the Opera Mini mobile browser, the same page can be shown 1,040 times before reaching the cap. The cost of viewing one webpage is also drastically less using the Opera Mini mobile browser over a full web browser.
Five data-saving tips for the trip:
1. Start saving data today, download Opera Mini for your mobile-phone and use it for web surfing.
2. Use open and free wifi points wherever available, but be aware of security issues
3. Turn pictures off in your mobile browser, or reduce quality to maximize cost reduction.
4. Stay away from audio, video and other large file downloads
5. During longer stays, purchasing a local pay-as-you-go card may be a cheaper option than.
Download the Opera Mini for your phone, by visiting m.opera.com with your current mobile-phone browser and start saving today!
