Bringing truly "usable" Internet services to the mobile phone has been a somewhat slow process, mainly because of where most of us are with the adoption of mobile phone technology.

But with the maturing of 3G, along with the products that utilise this mobile technology, the provision of online services for such devices has become a target for many. And today, it is Nokia's turn to bring further joy to our phone usage experiences...

Called "Ovi", meaning "door" in Finnish, this will be Nokia's new Internet services brand name. They plan on offering, at launch, three specific services to their users - which is summed up in the following extract of their press release:

As part of Ovi, Nokia announced the Nokia Music Store and N-Gage, two services that make it easy for people to discover, try and buy music and games from a blockbuster range of artists and publishers, including exclusive content only available through Nokia. Also under the Ovi umbrella is Nokia Maps, a navigation service that offers maps, city guides and more directly to compatible mobile devices. Nokia aims to bring more Internet based services to Ovi in the coming months.

The music store will be something like Apple's iTunes Store, where users will be able to make single track or album purchases - with costs expected at EUR 1.00 and EUR 10.00 respectively. Full track streaming to a PC will also be an available option, with an estimated monthly subscription cost of EUR 10.00.

For the N-Gage and Nokia Maps services, these will allow users to download the respective content directly to their mobile devices for immediate use. These are certainly great distribution models, again made possible by the maturing of mobile Internet connectivity.

Other elements of Ovi will appear progressively in the many months following its launch, with some of these including access to personal content, communities and contacts from either a PC or a compatible Nokia device.

Nokia hopes to have the first version of the Ovi service is expected to go live sometime during the fourth quarter this year, and will be offered in English only. Progressive introduction of new features and additional languages should be made available during the first half of 2008.

Resources: Nokia Ovi web site