The CEO of Vodafone , Vittorio Colao , has told attendees at this year's Nokia World 2010 event that he welcomes the end of "unlimited" Mobile Broadband data plans. Colao also warned consumers that "data pricing has to adjust", thus signalling a greater focus on tiered pricing models.


However despite the concerns of some Net Neutrality advocates, Colao said that he did not support "a closed model" as this risks damaging "everyone in the value chain" and causing them to pay a heavy price. Certainly we don't want to see operators putting some services, such as the BBC's iPlayer or Skype, on a metaphorical 'bad boy pipe' only to then charge customers extra to receive the full performance.

Separately Colao also noted that half of Vodafone's total network is now capable of delivering peak download speeds of 14.4Mb, with 2Mb uploads. That's the theoretically maximum of standard HSPA technology, excluding the more advanced variants. He did not mention real-world performance.

In addition, a third of Vodafone's total customer base browses the mobile internet, another quarter play online games, 20% use email, 15% enjoy social networking services, 11% make use of maps (i.e. Google maps), 30% use it for business and video/music is the fastest growing area.