Mobile services are widely viewed as the next great frontier of the information age, and gobs of money are being deployed accordingly. Just last week, Google and Intel and Comcast and Time Warner, among others, agreed to get spend more than $3 billion to support WiMax, a new wireless broadband technology.

Also last week, RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, reportedly set up a $150 million fund to encourage software development for its mobile platform.

Meanwhile, the Apple iPhone juggernaut continues – there's a $100 million fund for iPhone application developers too. (Google is actually the scrooge in this particular competition, with just $10 million in its fund to encourage development for its Android mobile phone operating system). Content companies of all stripes are racing to deliver their bits to pocket-sized devices.

The appeal of mobile services is pretty intuitive; if there is a way to deliver something to wherever a person happens to be at that moment, then why not? For companies providing the services, moreover, mobile offers something very valuable: a built-in billing and payment system, which makes it possible to charge money for things that people would otherwise expect free. (Why do people pay for ringtones on their phones, even as they pirate music tracks on their PCs? Because it's easy.)

Yet a lot of the things that are floated as examples of the great wonders of the mobile web strike me as most uninteresting. I'm not much of a gamer, so that knocks out a lot things. As for commerce, a local coffee shop could send you a coupon or an alert as you walk by, for example, just in case you wanted a coffee but didn't realise it. If you were hungry, you could easily search for nearby eateries. If you were worried about your kid being home alone, you could check in on him from your handheld via a webcam.

I certainly see the value of having full web access in your pocket; I find my Blackberry very handy, mainly because I no longer have to worry about missing an important e-mail when I'm on the road. Devices like the iPhone, or Amazon's Kindle book reader, provide elegant solutions to the basic physical constraints of portable internet devices, and that's great. I'm all for cheap, easy Web access on the fly.

Fundamentally, though, I don't have any need or desire to have a full suite of applications and services at my fingertips at all times. When I'm not at my desk, I'd just as soon not be at my desk, as it were. And finding a decent restaurant on a moment’s notice in an unfamiliar neighbourhood is not actually a problem that can be solved by any technology, at least not so far.

Frankly, what I want out of my mobile, first of all, is better phone service. It's incredible to me that the simple phone call has been so devalued that scratchy, intermittent reception, frequent dropped calls, and extremely low fidelity are considered normal and acceptable.

Secondly, I'd like a comprehensible pricing structure where I don't find myself, as I did recently, being told that I am eligible for a free phone upgrade, but if I want this particular phone there is a surcharge, and that surcharge is more than the retail price of that phone, so the upgrade thing is actually kind of a hoax and I just have to buy a new phone. And, oh yeah, you need to sign a two-year contract. Huh?

Thirdly, I'd like my phone to work if I'm overseas. I know this is easier said than done, but it is an enormous inconvenience not to have access to your phone exactly when you need it most – when travelling in a faraway place.

When the iPhone was launched, much was made of the fact that Apple, by creating such a cool device, was able to wrest some control away from the carriers, which prefer to keep tight control over their networks and services. But Apple is no champion of open systems, and the iPhone model – a very expensive device, applications tightly controlled by Apple, and an onerous long-term service contract – is not exactly progress to my mind.

In all the hype about mobile platforms and the fortunes to be made therein, the industry is losing sight of the basics. I hope someone eventually sees that as a business opportunity.

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Jonathan Weber is the founder and editor in chief of NewWest.Net, a regional news service focused on the Rocky Mountain West in the United States. He was previously the co-founder and editor in chief of the Industry Standard

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