I’ve just returned from a great snowboarding holiday in Tignes, France which was responsible for the gap in posts. While there I got a message from O2 on my mobile which gave me a flat rate for calls home for 36p per minute which I thought was quite good but still more than double a Skype call back to an O2 mobile in the UK.

Another type of mobile technology was responsible for the delay we had flying back. We were on time until the front wheel on the Thomas Cook aircraft was broken by the tractor pushing the plane out of its dock. A 24 hour delay and extra night in Lyon ensued as an engineer needed to be flown out with two new wheels. You’d have thought something the size of a plane would have room for a spare!

At the risk of posting too much mobile news, here’s a link to a new Global Mobile report from Netsize and Informa, which demonstrates of the 2.2 million GSM mobile standard subscribers worldwide, growth is strongest in African and Asian markets.

Titled, “Convergence: Everything’s going mobile” it includes both up-to-date research and articles from head honchos at Nokia, Google, Vodafone and the like.

Unsurprisingly, China and India lead the pack in GSM and the research shows 3G has failed to take off in Europe, with people buying the phones but not the services. Music on mobiles has proved popular during 2006 with strong download sales but TV ‘on-the-go’ is where companies are focusing their efforts now.

Mobile growth in the UK is predicted to jump from 69,710 million subscribers in 2006 to 74,485 million this year.

Interestingly, there’s a section on machine-to-machine(M2M) computing in the report. Using the Web as a network to transmit data from electrical products with embedded digital sensors, homeowners and businesses will be able to control and monitor machines and appliances remotely from mobile devices. Useful if you’ve left the lights on at peak time and therefore potentially energy-saving.

At 3GSM, the world’s main ‘mobiles of the future’ event, taking place this week, Vodafone and Google announced a deal to put maps on mobiles.

The FT reports it here saying that the two companies plan location-based services so that you will be able to type in ‘pizza’ to your mobile and bring up a map to your nearest restaurant.

The other thing on people’s lips at the event is 4G, which promises download speeds to your mobile of a two hour film in six seconds according to The Times. Anyone using 3G yet?