Sunday, March 20, 2011

Consolidation of Wireless

In 2002 in a brief return to the US before going and selling my company, I was asked by Eli Noam to present a paper on the evolution of wireless.  Simply stated I predicted three major trends:

1. Data explosion

2. Loss of copper lines

3. Massive consolidation in wireless, with at most three carriers, likely just 2!

Now with the announcement of the acquisition of T Mobile by ATT the final resolution of my predictions is coming to fruition. Not a bad guess, I also said ten years.

Now the real problem is for Verizon and Vodafone. What are they to do with that mill stone. Tricky problem and they just keep kicking the can down the road, perhaps until Seidenberg retires soon.

Oh, yes, the next explosion is obvious, video on Internet, but I mean video conferencing. Not just downloads, I am talking about the explosion of real time video. Let's see what happens.