I’m reviewing a 3G mobile phone at the moment - the LG 8120 (right) on sale in the UK from Three, and (so far) what a nice device it is. Compact, lighter than previous 3G handsets I’ve tried, with a sharp screen, plenty of memory and lots of features, it’s the first 3G mobi to have me thinking “maybe”, rather than “not on your nelly”.

Just a shame the company selling it appears not to be learning from other people’s mistakes - specifically, continuing, stubbornly, to refuse to let its users roam out onto the big, bad internet. Worse, it has taken to telling its users they don’t want it, when it’s clear to everyone outside Three that the moment it’s on offer, users will snap it up.

“People don’t want open access, that’s not what our customers tell us they want,” insists the company’s COO, Gareth Jones in NMA. “Anyone in their right mind who tries to do anything on the internet with a screen that size has to be nuts,” he adds, somewhat confusingly (as someone who is nuts can’t be in their right mind - you see?)

Anyway - Jones added: “My customers tell me they have two to three minutes to access mobile content; you would not even get WAP to fire up in that time let alone download anything of any significance.”

That’s not true, and also a bit daft. Why? First, the net’s been here before with AOL and other online services. A decade ago they didn’t offer full internet access - just propriatory “walled gardens”. But by the mid 90s their users were sensing there was a world of content out there on the proper internet, beyond the powers of their online service connections.

AOL was faced with three options.

(1) try to match the full internet with its own content
(2) keep users off the full internet and watch them defect to full service ISPs in their droves, or
(3) give them full net access.

Wisely, AOL picked option three, and lived to tell the tale.

Why would they do that? Well, they saw they couldn’t match the world of information and entertainment out there, and that users really wanted to get all that stuff. They also saw that they’d make money from users going to get it all, even if AOL hadn’t created it, because users were paying per minute charges while online (spot the similarity between mid 1990s internet and today’s mobile telephones, anyone?).

Finally, they also saw they’d get their hand forced - if they didn’t open up, a rival would, and customers would vote with their feet. Or mouses.

That’s the problem Three will face soon, too. Improved mobile content will shortlly - if it hasn’t already - make open net access a must. Better handheld devices and browsing software (Opera’s mobile web browser is already fantastic) will make screen size much less important. Rival operators will launch 3G services at consumers, and see full net access as a soft spot in Three’s otherwise impressive armour - and a cheaper feature to offer than mobile rights to the Premiership, for instance.

What will Three do then? You can only hope they respond with as much good sense as AOL did ten years earlier, and lift those barriers that should never have been up in the first place.

As they do, however, you’ll have to wonder if Mr Jones will be forced to eat his words - when his users, those precious users he’s apparently so keen to listen to, prove beyond doubt they want to indulge in behaviour he’s already dismissed as “nuts”.

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