Mobilkom Austria Offers Free Mobile Web Surfing with Opera Mini

Opera Software announced that Mobilkom Austria is the first mobile operator to offer its customers the opportunity to surf the Web from their mobile phones free of charge during the month of November 2006. As a result of an agreement between Opera Software and Mobilkom Austria, A1 and B-FREE pre- and post-paid customers with Java-capable mobile phones can simply download the Opera Mini browser onto their mobile phones and start surfing the Web.

By offering one month of free surfing (no data traffic costs incurred), Mobilkom Austria wants to demonstrate the power and convenience of Opera Mini to its user base.

"The leading mobile operator in Austria, Mobilkom Austria, breaks new ground in making the mobile Web a reality for everyone. By giving its customers the opportunity to download Opera Mini and surf for 30 days free of charge, even the biggest skeptics may open their eyes to the benefits of mobile Web browsing: Surfing on the mobile screen is fast, useful and easy," said Roger Carlhammar, executive vice president, Opera Software. "We are excited about this first step with our preferred partner Mobilkom Austria, the company behind the A1 brand. In the future, we will work together to further enhance the mobile experience."

Using Opera's Small-Screen Rendering (SSR) technology, Opera Mini reformats regular Web pages to fit the width of mobile screens. By processing Web pages through a server, the data that is sent to the mobile phone is compressed by as much as 80 percent. For the end-user, this means faster browsing and reduced phone bills for those who pay per KB in data traffic.