Vodafone reconfigures for mobile internet

Vodafone is starting a push to get its subscribers to use the internet from their handsets.

The company announced that 10 million subscribers will now be able to access internet pages more clearly thanks to a new rendering engine.

Vodafone has signed deals with eBay, Google, MySpace, Yahoo and YouTube to build sites for customers.

"Vodafone Mobile Internet will revolutionise the way our customers use the internet," said Vodafone UK chief executive Nick Read.

"For example, eBay customers could miss out on bids because they are not at their computers at the vital moment. With Vodafone Mobile Internet they need never lose out as they can bid from their mobile phones while on the move."

Contract customers can pay £7.50 for 120MB of data use a month on a data contract or £1 per 500KB daily. Prepay customers also pay £1 per 500KB and with both non-data packages users pay no more until they hit 15MB.

Vodafone said that it is using a new rendering engine that makes web pages much more readable on small screens. It has also developed a software tool that allows a computer's bookmarks to synchronise with the phone.