Operator billing is coming.

I hesitate to name 2011 the Year of Operator Billing, because there are many technical and political issues that must be solved before a unified system can be deployed across Europe and North America, and that’ll take more than a year. But operator billing is definitely coming.

Peter-Paul Koch on the inevitability of cell phone companies enabling web sites and applications to accept payment via charges appearing on your phone bill, aka operator billing.

This is a good thing if for no other reason than that it encourages competition. Whether it ever lives up to its considerable potential is anyone’s guess.