O2's chief executive has admitted that his company's data network has been unable to keep up with the "explosion" in popularity of the iPhone.

The mobile operator's London data network has suffered a spate of crashes over the past year, as it was hit with unprecedented demand from data-hungry smartphone customers.

The success of smartphones, led by the iPhone - which was available exclusively on O2 until November 2009 - has caused an 18-fold increase in data traffic since the beginning of 2009, according to the company.

Opera has launched a beta version of Opera Mobile 10 for Windows Mobile-based smartphones.

According to the company, Opera Mobile 10 has been optimised for touchscreens with a simplified interface that includes a virtual keyboard and the usual raft of pan, pinch and zoom controls.

Despite simplifying the interface, the company claims the browser still squeezes in the majority of features from its desktop cousin.

Mobile data traffic is set to grow 25-fold by 2012, stretching the mobile networks to their very limits.

Mobile industry analysts Informa claim that mobile broadband networks are already beginning to sag under the strain in major cities. "The networks in developed markets in the UK and the US are starting to saturate," Informa analyst Dimitris Mavrakis has announced. "We see a lot of bottlenecks in data-centric areas such as London and New York."

UK surfers are missing out on potentially huge savings by not bothering to change broadband suppliers or bundle their electronic services into one package, according to research from moneysupermarket.com.

One in ten consumers simply cannot be bothered to switch broadband suppliers, while 69% are not getting the best deal possible because they are happy with their supplier or don’t want a bundled package, the research found.