Carrier Mandate 2010: Never Say “When”

Joe McGarvey, Current Analysis

It’s astonishing that the inhabitants of a country where 535 lawmakers can never seem to get anything done are so firmly convicted to the belief that more is better. The U.S. is truly the land of plenty, where we erect monuments to even the mundane — world’s biggest ball of yarn — if it lives up to our sense of disproportion.

Our creed: Abundance is beautiful.

Our role model: Oliver Twist.

Our penchant for the overboard knows no limit and shifts into ludicrous when it comes to sports and entertainment. Any follower of the National Football League is witness to the bizarre expansion of the NFL pre-game show, which has become nearly as long as the game itself. What started out a few years ago as a couple of talking heads previewing the day’s games has morphed into a general session of the UN, with dozens of experts and ex-players shouting over each other and requiring a dais that surely stretches the reach of even the widest of wide-angle television cameras. I watch with expectations of Khrushchev banging his shoe on the table to bring order and pontificate on the inherent futility of a prevent defense.

And speaking of Oliver Twist, even canonical English literature is not out of bounds when it comes to our addiction to meaningless mash-ups. The latest rave in publishing is to combine a classic, left defenseless in the public domain, with a cheesy narrative ripped out of pop culture. “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” an example of such an amalgamation, attracted 400 Amazon.com customer reviews and, appropriately enough, resurrected Jane Austen long enough to spin in her grave.

The telecommunications industry, of course, is no stranger to piling it on. I was just wrapping my arms around predictions by telecom equipment-makers that multiple billions of mobile connections would be activated by 2012 when I ran across a press release that dialed up the figure into the trillions. The latter prognostication is plotted a few more years into the future (2017), suggesting a tremendous acceleration in online growth over a five-year period, as well as delivering a severe slap in the face to doomsday predictors and Mayan calendar enthusiasts.

Upon reflection, the telecom industry may be the one sphere in our existence where more is almost always better — and a likely necessity for survival. And as long as advances continue in disk storage technology, telecom operators will be able to accommodate the subscriber’s insatiable appetite for the bizarre and the obscure. The ability of service providers to maintain a bottomless menu is popularly known as the long-tail model. However, I think a more apt description is a comparison to one of those souvenir emporiums found in any tourist-frequented location. Due to the wide range of cultural, social-economic and moral makeup of their potential customers, souvenir shop operators need to cram their shelves with the most eclectic assortment of brick-a-brack imaginable.

Consider the modern service provider a next-generation application emporium, with absolutely no physical constraints on the shelf life or the personalized nature of the products that make up its catalog. Operators need to adopt the mind-set that they must be able to meet the needs and the whims of any subscriber who wanders past their virtual souvenir stand.

The much talked-about operator-owned application store falls into the same “never say when” category. Telecom carriers should pose no restrictions when it comes to building a developer community, third-party partner ecosystem or universe of supported subscriber devices. If operators are going to compete with device-makers and over-the-top service providers they need to win the numbers game. Only by opening up their networks through easy-to-write-to application programming interfaces will operators be able to attract more developers — and more compelling applications — than a device-maker. Ironically, operators will need to go overboard to avoid drowning at the hands of Internet-based competitors.

Again, the telecom industry is a rare exception to the “all things in moderation” rule. In general, Plato’s wise words should be heeded. I offer two more words for those who still believe that overabundance or overexposure is a good thing: Lady Gaga.