Mobile always has been big in Ireland, with the general population more mobile-savvy than in most other nations. We have more mobiles than people and make more use of them than most of the rest of the developed world. We're an ideal test bed for mobile products, so little wonder we do well in developing them.

The rest of the world, too, is showing that mobile . . . and specifically mobile web . . . is hot. Microsoft, Google and Nokia are buying up all types of mobile technology companies and using the technologies or the talent to build their own mobile offerings.

However there is an elephant in the room when it comes to the mobile web and it has a stars-and-stripes collar.

The US is the biggest market for consumer technology yet the economic giant is holding the world back with its relatively backward mobile development. The world, it seems, will have to wait for America before the mobile web becomes a reality.

The mobile market in America is notoriously difficult to do business in.

Only recently have carriers stopped charging people to receive text messages; many of the phones are quite basic and are locked by carriers from doing anything that might threaten revenue.

It's no wonder the iPhone has been the biggest thing this year in the US mobile space despite being a phone that lacks most of the features we Europeans are well used to. Only a strong brand like Apple could get away with having ultimate control of their phone. Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson have not been so lucky.

While in Silicon Valley last week I asked Netscape founder and social networking champion Marc Andreessen whether the mobile web will be a success. He said the space in America was too jammed with competing "standards" and entrenched carriers to make the necessary breakthroughs.

Google, though, does not want to wait though and is willing to spend billions to break the impasse. With one in every two people in the world now owning a mobile phone, the mobile web is going to be used more than the existing web. Google wants in but, being a global company, it want a base standard worldwide and not a different standard per country or, worse, many standards in a single country.

Recently Google launched its Android mobile platform, which is being given away to mobile handset manufacturers for free and which Google hypes as being based on open standards. This will still not be enough, though, to break the US market and force through an open standard. So Google is doing the unthinkable: bidding to become a mobile carrier and acquire spectrum in the US If Google is successful it is promising to open its network to anyone and allow any application to work on it . . . a move that a horrified AT&T is trying to stop.

There's going to be a PR and financial battle that will scar both sides but will ultimately benefit consumers and the mobile web. This local turf war is important globally as even if Google loses, AT&T will probably have to make concessions and allow the mobile web through eventually. C'mon the Google!

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&DT=16/12/2007%2000:00:00&keywords=mulley&FC