One year later

As you read this, you have probably already heard I am missing and feared dead after wandering off from a Super Bowl party. No, this is not like that video obituary Art Buchwald recorded for The New York Times; it's just an acknowledgement that I knew the dangers involved in my favorite team, the Chicago Bears, playing in Superbowl XLI, and I went ahead and tried to enjoy it anyway. The last time the Bears made it this far (that was Super Bowl Dos Equis back in January 1986), I was 17 years old and spent most of a frigid weekend guzzling various beverages and stuffing my face with foods that make others want to vacate your immediate vicinity (that would be chili, pork chops, chips and chili).

The Bears won Super Bowl XX in grand fashion, and I will go out on a limb and write (it's currently Thursday, Feb. 1) that, as you read this, it is with the knowledge that my Bears beat the Indianapolis Colts on Super Bowl Sunday. (This is no Namath guarantee, mind you, only a fan trying to hope, pray and bet his way to Super Bowl glory.) In any case, I don't know for sure whether that happened or not because, like I said, I might be dead.

Speaking of Super Bowls — and also death, actually — it's been about one year since Mobile ESPN ushered in the age of the mobile content-focused MVNO during the week of Super Bowl XL. Mobile ESPN failed to survive the year, and when it folded last fall, it inspired a broad re-evaluation of the MVNO model. Most critics eventually settled on Mobile ESPN's content strategy being at fault for its failure — it either charged too much for content or that content wasn't worth the price, which sounds like the same thing but maybe isn't.

Mobile content seems to have survived the demise of Mobile ESPN, but the industry is clearly looking for new options to support their mobile content business models. One of the solutions is mobile advertising, which potentially could be used to create greater content revenue opportunities while introducing the possibility for lower-priced or free content for users because of ad support. My story on mobile advertising can be found on page 34, and look for more coverage on this topic from me on our Web site, www.telephonyonline.com.

Elsewhere in this issue, Ed Gubbins examines something else that started this time last year — the Metro Ethernet Forum's effort to develop an external network-to-network interface (E-NNI) standard. That standard effort is still alive, but the E-NNI itself may not be ready to breathe on its own. His story is on page 30.

Kevin Fitchard writes about the rise of China's Huawei on page 32, and other stories in this issue's Forward Motion section focus of post-merger carrier spending, the TeleManagement Forum's new president and an annual review of the global telecom industry.

Are you ready for some hockey?