rates are quite different here, and - that’s the worst side of it - they often and suddenly change.
I can tell you that you can spend from 20 up to 50 euros/month for a 3g connection, with various limitations (ie: from 500MB up to 9GB of downloads, or from 5pm to 9am and you pay per KB in the other times of the day and so on).

It does not exist a completely flat subscription today (an ADSL connection - 4Mbit/sec costs you 20 euros/month without any limitation). that’s one and not the only reason why mobile apps are not very used in Italy.

You can also pay a rate “per KByte”, which spans from 0.1 eurocents/Kbyte up to 0.4 eurocents/Kbyte but some carriers apply some additional rate such as “first slot of traffic rate” (definition is mine, so forgive me if you don’t understand it) that makes you pay a “slot” of 10 or more Kbytes for every new connection even if you download a smaller file.

HTH,
Andrea

One thing that I would like to explore, especially in regard of the kind of app I am interested in, is what are the current rate for data download for an “average” subscription in Italy?

Right now, I think Ajax on mobile is more a commercial buzzword than a really useful technology.

Greetings

I blogged about your post here and added a few other reasons why AJAX on mobile devices is not going anywhere anytime soon.

My comments available at http://my.opera.com/Think/blog/show.dml/496297

I shared the same opinion. Couldn’t agree more.

Just to share my view on OpenGarden’s posting (http://opengardensblog.futuretext.com/archives/2006/09/soonr_or_later_1.html) on SOONR and mobile AJAX can be found here.

http://mobiko.blogs.com/mutant/2006/10/soonr_a_mobile_.html#trackback

>>>
Is mobile web 2.0 = mobile Ajax?
Thomas seems to think that there is a myth to that effect.

Having written a 300 odd page book on mobile web 2.0, I don’t think that mobile web 2.0 = mobile ajax.

web 2.0 is an emotive topic. Hence, we(Tony Fish and I) discuss mobile web 2.0 with great detail (i.e. it would have been easier to piggyback on a buzz word).

Here is an old blog indicating the three characteristics of mobile web 2.0 which give an insight to my thinking
(http://opengardensblog.futuretext.com/archives/2006/04/the_three_chara.html)

Perhaps Thomas is just being nice and trying to help me sell more books

Meanwhile, I am off to speak at the (gulp) Ajax world conference in Santa Clara. If you are attending it, I look forward to meeting you

Really in line with what Thomas said, especially this point :

…Ajax applications will run the same on mobiles than on PC, and this will save us some porting costs. Wrong! Seems that the Write Once Run Anywhere myth is back!! It was actually already not achievable through technology designed for this, so I did not see how Ajax app…

Same for me … the more I work in this industry with european, chineese,Korean partners the more I see:

see next at http://tmenguy.free.fr/TechBlog/?p=63

Great read from TomSoft about Mobile Ajax:
TomSoft » Myths of mobile Web2.0 (and mobile Ajax).

Really in line with what Thomas said, especially this point :

…Ajax applications will run the same on mobiles than on PC, and this will save us some….

See Tom Landspurg’s Myths of mobile Web2.0 (and mobile Ajax).

Good piece. I share many of Tom’s viewpoints, and as a matter of fact, Tom and I are very much in sync, to the point that Ajit’s SoonR and Mobile AJAX article triggered similar respo…