There are news reports that the top two searches on Vodafone’s newly launched mobile internet service are social networking web sites Facebook and Bebo. Next in line is the community-based auction site eBay. Facebook is already the most surfed site by Vodafone mobile broadband users. It is followed by Google and the BBC. Bebo features fifth in the ranking list, with MySpace in the eighth slot.

Vodafone has been quoted saying that it has seen an increase in the appetite of the users for email, IM as well as social networking through mobile broadband, including the likes of user-generated video site YouTube and Google search. The operator announced that it has squeezed its monthly price plans in order to include unlimited internet access (provided there is a ‘fair usage’ policy of 500MB per month).

This means that all plans automatically include web access and customers who pay on a monthly basis no longer need to pay anything extra for an Internet bundle. This is not the first initiative of its kind from Vodafone to encourage mobile broadband usage. In February, the firm has slashed the cost of a 3GB mobile broadband price plan to almost half for a certain period. Last month, even BlackBerry-maker RIM announced that users can download more than a million downloads of a Facebook application for its smart phone.