Most mobile phones currently used in the UK are capable of accessing the Internet to some degree. Yet researchers from the Office of Communications (Ofcom) found that just 16% of mobile users polled had accessed the Internet via mobile phone in the third quarter of 2007, while 10% had used their mobile phones to send or receive e-mail.

The Office for National Statistics agrees that fewer than one in five UK adults used a mobile phone to go online in 2007. According to this source, only 15% of UK adults went online using a GPRS-enabled mobile that year, and just 3% used a 3G (third-generation) mobile phone to access the Internet.

In the UK, France, Germany and Italy, as well as the US and Canada, text messaging remains by far the most popular non-voice mobile service, and makes the largest single contribution to the data revenues of mobile operators.

It’s widely believed that the mobile Internet won’t really take off in the UK until more handsets incorporate 3G technology.

But despite mobile operators’ efforts to promote it to their subscribers, 3G has not claimed a sufficient share of mobile connections to drive the market forward. According to Ofcom, there were fewer than 13 3G connections for every 100 UK residents at the end of 2006 – just 11% of all mobile connections.

M:Metrics has suggested that 3G penetration reached 18% in 2007, but even this has not triggered widespread consumer interest in Web-based mobile services.

3G penetration was not directly helped by the arrival in November 2007 of Apple’s iPhone, which uses a non-3G technology. And, however attractive the iPhone, it did not achieve its initial UK sales target. The sole iPhone distributor in Britain, mobile operator O2, had hoped to sell 200,000 handsets in the two months following launch. The Financial Times reported actual sales of about 190,000.

This does not look like a serious shortfall, and longer-term iPhone sales may be quite healthy in the UK. But the much-hyped launch of an expensive phone – the handset alone costs £269 ($538), and O2’s minimum monthly subscription package is £35 ($70) – with limited online capabilities has not yet given the UK’s mobile Internet market a major boost. Two changes would help: lower prices, and built-in 3G technology.

In the US, Apple dropped the price of the iPhone two and a half months after launch. So it was no big surprise when, in Britain, O2 announced some revisions of its own in late January 2008.

The iPhone handset price would not change, said a spokesman, but subscribers on a monthly tariff of £35 would get a better deal: 600 free call minutes per month rather than 200. The mid-price service, formerly £55 ($110) per month, would cost £45 ($90). O2 also announced a new top-tier pricing band giving users 3,000 minutes and 500 texts free each month with their £75 ($150) subscription.

More importantly, Apple has promised that UK iPhones will be ready for 3G later in 2008.

Find out how the UK online population measures up. Read eMarketer's UK Internet: Users and Usage target=blank>UK Internet: Users and Usage report.