The Times of London is to allow casual users of its Web site to pay for archived news articles via their monthly mobile phone bill, according to a report in the Guardian.
The Guardian report says users simply input their mobile number to unlock restricted parts of the site. They will then be charged for usage on their monthly phone bill.
Times Online is currently testing the system internally and hopes to be able to launch it across all mobile networks in the next few months, writes the Guardian.
Annelies van den Belt, the digital director of Times Online, told the paper: "One of our assets as a company is the value of our content and up until the middle of last year our Internet strategy didn't totally fit with that...If you want to buy a single feature or an archive article, we will now be able to charge 25p or 50p and get people not just to register but to pay for it."
The move would pave the way for a host of other Web-based publications to offer readers articles and features on a daily, weekly or monthly subscription via their mobile phones.