Is Tracfone the Southwest Airlines of Wireless? With little fanfare, a new service was announced this week that I think is a signature event for the U.S. wireless industry: Straight Talk from Tracfone. Why is this significant? Read More

Wireless has fared comparatively well in this tough economy. One exception is the marked slowdown in mobile broadband growth. My view is that the prevailing pricing from leading operators is not aligned with the needs of the next wave of adopters, plus the multitude of connected devices coming to market. It's time to rethink the approach to MBB pricing. Read More

With the explosion in app stores, what will the next generation of capabilities look like? I argue that a more personalized, contextualized applications experience is needed. Read More

As executives, I think it is important to learn from companies that are being especially innovative in adapting to change, introducing new business models, or are significantly over-indexing their peer group. What are some of the lessons for the wireless industry? Read More

With so much investment and effort going into the app store ecosystem, I think it's an opportune moment to consider what the future might look like. In this column, I will focus on the evolution of the app store business model. My next column will focus on the evolution of app store features and capabilities. Read More

Even though attendance might be a little down, I think the tone of the show will be upbeat. Here's what to expect in the areas of infrastructure, devices, applications, open development, and more. Read More

We are at an important fork in the road with respect to location-based services. There is a huge amount going on in this area, yet LBS have proven difficult to monetize. Will location be part of a premium set of apps? Is it the holy grail of mobile search and advertising? Read More

It became clear in 2008 that flat rate plans are, over time, going to become the prevalent structure for wireless pricing. Even with these developments, I believe we are starting to outgrow today's pricing model for wireless services, when we think about a multi-device world with all sorts of connected wireless devices. Here are some thoughts on some new approaches. Read More

It became clear in 2008 that flat rate plans are, over time, going to become the prevalent structure for wireless pricing. Even with these developments, I believe we are starting to outgrow today's pricing model for wireless services when we consider a multi-device world. In an expanded version of my January Fierce Wireless column, some new pricing approaches are presented.
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This is the time of year when various industry pundits opine with their “year-in-review”, “predictions”, and related columns. My contribution to this effort is to outline five broad themes that I think will govern the wireless industry in 2009. Read More

Despite all the difficult news around us, 2008 was a terrific year for wireless, marked by game-changing improvements to the end-user experience. For this year-end Lens, rather than making specific "predictions", I wanted to outline several themes that I think will frame the industry in 2009.
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A year ago, Verizon Wireless created headlines with its announcement of the Open Development initiative. "Open" has become one of the industry's key new buzzwords, with "App" stores popping up everywhere and a slew of operator and OEM initiatives. This Lens presents a brief progress report on open development. The bottom line: mixed, with some potential minefields ahead. Read More

Of all the developments in the wireless industry in this very eventful 2008, none is greater than the way mobile content is being developed, priced, sold and consumed. This has been a net gain for subscribers. But within the mobile value chain, we are seeing a shift in the balance of power and a variety of new business models. Read More

When I first wrote about the effects of the downturn for Fierce Wireless in July, I remarked that the wireless industry has so far escaped relatively unscathed by the economic downturn. Well, four months, an 8,000 points Dow, the unraveling of Wall Street as we've know it and trillions in global bailouts later, consider the wireless industry scathed, like every sector of the wireless economy. Here is my assessment of what is happening, and what opportunities it might create. Read More

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