Google: Take advertising and your mobile should be free

Link: Google chief sees free cellphones for consumers if ads OKd – Nov. 11, 2006

Web search leader Google Inc.’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, sees a future where mobile phones are free to consumers who accept watching targeted forms of advertising.

Schmidt said Saturday that as mobile phones become more like handheld computers and consumers spend as much as eight to 10 hours a day talking, texting and using the Web on these devices, advertising becomes a viable form of subsidy.

“Your mobile phone should be free,” Schmidt told Reuters. “It just makes sense that subsidies should increase” as advertising rises on mobile phones.

The devices are already ‘free’ in the UK (most of the time) due to subsidy — but that’s certainly not the case in other parts of the world. It’s also worth distinguishing between the device cost and the service cost.

As for using your phone for 8-10 hours a day? You’d have to have a rather good mobile battery for that.