While the ‘dumb pipe’ phenomenon certainly isn’t new to the telecommunications industry, it was definitely a hot topic on day one of CTIA Wireless 2009 in Las Vegas.

CTIA president and CEO Steve Largent announced today that mobile data now amounts to $10.5 billion in U.S. carrier revenues. The upward spiral of content monetization is expected to continue, but only if wireless network operators pursue the right strategies. If they fail to implement new business models, then they could be marginalized as the World Wide Web goes mobile.

Our perspective:

The convergence of computing and communications has enabled operators to deliver useful everyday applications such as local news and events, weather, location-based services, and user-directed media and entertainment content. Carriers are now able to provide these applications to subscribers via open web browsing on their existing feature phones and smartphones.

Taking CTIA’s newly released statistics into account, along with the acceleration of mobile data subscriptions and the rise of innovative applications on smartphones, operators have an unprecedented opportunity to capitalize on consumer demand for personalized services. Delivering a value-added browsing experience to consumers can open up new business models and revenue streams for operators worldwide and pre-empt the dreaded ‘dumb pipe’ scenario.

Carriers should consider offering standard interfaces such as navigation toolbars, which will empower them to stay relevant and add value in the off-portal world. Personalizing an individual’s browsing experience provides a new revenue opportunity. Toolbars enable operators to maintain a consumer presence, provide innovative new services and monetize content whether the user is at Yahoo!, CNN, Google, or any other popular site. The more consumers use mobile devices to browse the Internet, the higher the impact and frequency of the operator’s presence. By influencing the selection of relevant content, they can drive users to their portal and form partnerships with content providers for new revenue streams.

-Stacey Infantino

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 7:46 am and is filed under mobile internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.