Thanks, Rob S.
I've not been "hard-wired" to my service provider, hence to the Internet, itself, for several years, thanks to the 802.11 router that sits between my appliance of choice and my cable modem. Yet, I consider myself a cable modem user. Whether wired or wireless, it's beginning to make less difference which, even in those tired and hackneyed ideological wars, where even fiber bigots are unwittingly typing from their homes while using wireless gateways to get to the 'Net. In many ways the two modes are becoming one delivery environment, where they haven't already.
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Your analysis is interesting because you present no misgivings in your representation of the services delivered over wireless with the wireless technology's intrinsic capabilities, seeming to proceed to bundle them together as though they composite in one homogeneous solution the virtues of the new wireless realm. Granted, I'm taking some of what you've stated out of context, but that's what came to my mind in the early part of your post, before you went on to qualify certain parts by introducing the flat (open) IP/SIP prospects of some current and most future offerings. If such is the reality, however, from a marketing perspective, then so be it. However, I like to break them out into their basic parts for a clearer fundamental understanding of what we're dealing with, separating the medium from the content and upper layer "services."
This is really quite timely, since I'm discussing this dichotomy elsewhere at the moment, as it seems like I've been doing for about the last ten years or more at this point. Ultimately, the technologies we're discussing, both wired and wireless, are used to support any number of purposes, call them applications, since they are all electives, although, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the public's use of wireless coincides with your characterizations very closely, IMO.
Actually, your follow-through supports what I am saying to some degree, when you state:
"The continued evolution of wireless into higher bandwidth and a flat IP/SIP environment will dramatically shift the business models of service providers."
Thus the road to cheaper and more ubiquitous connectivity, which has almost invariably led to a system based on gaming the free space through the introduction of exogenous content known as advertising and other mostly unwanted burdens, making a pay-fer delivery, sans advertising and other gimmicks, a bright spot for premium pricing. We've seen this already in some of the Municipal WiFi roll outs, where ad-based delivery were free or dirt cheap (and usually less robust from a throughput and features perspective), and higher speeds without ads cost considerably more.
"Like all major shifts, companies and individuals who take advantage of the shifts will benefit while those who try to hold onto passing business modalities without developing a path to the new ones will shrink from existence."
Agreed, although, given the equal access to wireless technologies, more or less, that service providers have to deploy (depending on their platforms), they must make choices concerning how they wish to play the situation (which business modality they will elect) while striving to differentiate themselves for competitive reasons. I've no issues with this, as long as the basic channel is still open to me, i.e., as long as my ability to use it as an open conduit to the Internet is not compromised or altered. Of course, IMS comes to mind here, given its man in the middle positioning and potential interactions on my data. Your thoughts?
FAC
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