I've just seen another vendor presentation suggesting that broadband operators might be able to charge "upstream" content or Internet companies for differentiated QoS, enabling them to "monetise the pipe".

It's a common refrain, underlined as usual by the 2008-era reference to "over-the-top players."

I have long been of the view that the greatest challenge to operators' hold on mobile value-added services will not necessarily come from Google (GOOG), Skype and other Internet players. It will come from each other.

The unspoken threat has been that other MNOs could represent the scariest so-called "over the top" risk. That they would decouple access from service, and start providing branded services over each others' networks and handsets.

I'm at eComm in Amsterdam - and currently listening to a very interesting presentation from James Body (historically with Truphone but wearing a different hat today).

A few years ago, I wrote about the UK's low-power GSM auctions, and the subsequent slow-burn deployment of various GSM picocell-based services from companies like Teleware. It's never really lived up to its promise, though.

I'm wondering.....

... if LTE looks like it might be delayed, for example because of poorer-than-expected performance, difficult optimization, continued wrangling over voice/SMS implementation, or because operators don't want to be strong-armed into IMS...

There was an interesting story in yesterday's Fierce Wireless that apparently Long Term Evolution (LTE) is needed urgently in 2010 to avert a capacity crunch for mobile broadband.

Well, I guess that means we're on for a crunch, then. I'm not expecting to see any major deployments of LTE in Europe until 2012, with no real massmarket availability of devices and coverage until 2014-2015.

One of the claims that the mobile industry likes to perpetuate is that SIM cards (and subscriptions) are "personal" and therefore position cellular operators as ideal providers of identity management services.

I've long thought that there were lots of assumptions about the one phone = one SIM = one person view of the world that were extremely fragile. Most obviously, it's very common for one person to have multiple SIMs, but that's not a particularly critical issue in most cases. Having multiple "identities per person" is pretty valuable to most users, anyway.

Reading between the lines of the Amazon (AMZN) Kindle 2 announcement, it seems that Amazon may have worked out a method for solving one of mobile application and device developers' biggest problems: how to avoid hiring an army of lawyers and commercial personnel to put in place deals with 100+ mobile operators around the world, and also avoid aggregators that want to take yet another slice of revenue. It might also have enabled AT&T (T) to invent a new business model - servicing end-users resident outside its own geographic footprint.

My understanding is that Kindle 2s (initially at least) will ship from Amazon's US website and operation - and will have AT&T-registered SIMs. This means that a UK customer will purchase the device and have it imported (including paying customs charges) and that it will work on one or more UK mobile networks automatically.

Market forecasts for Mobile Computing. Notebooks, netbooks, dongles, MIDs & tethers, on 3G, LTE and WiMAX networks. Analysis of current and new business models, and key company strategies.

Only 30% of mobile broadband users will be using embedded-WWAN notebooks in 2011.

I've talked before about the notion of 3rd-party payment for a user's mobile data access, for example a venue owner or conference organizer sponsoring "free mobile broadband" for certain customers or attendees.

mBlox in particular has discussed its notion of "Sender Pays" data for chunks of content. For people without flat rate data plans, having a clear method to ensure the customer isn't going to face a big bill for downloading per-MB has to be a good thing.

I generally find it too hard to get worked-up about net neutrality, as in competitive markets, everything tends to sort itself out. In the UK I have a choice of mobile broadband providers - some open to all content/apps and some more restrictive, with an array of price plans, coverage and customer service. I choose which I like.

The US tends to be more complex, because of the relative lack of true nationwide competition, and the barriers to consumers having (or trialling) multiple service providers, because of a lack of contract-free prepaid offers. It's much more difficult to exercise choice if you're locked into a 2-year monthly contract with onerous penalty exit clauses.

I'm utterly buried with work and travel this week, so I can't dig into this very deeply, but the GSMA has just announced its next iteration of RCS.

A key feature seems to be support for PC clients, which makes a huge amount of sense - and indeed is just about the only area where there's historically been traction for these kind of enhanced operator services, through the efforts of software vendors like Movial.

About 10 years ago, it became fashionable to say that "voice is just another sort of data on an IP network". VoIP, it was suggested, just turned telephony into mere bits, just like any others.

I want to extend and explore that description of subset/superset: I assert that "content is just a special sort of application on an IP network". It's just big chunks of software.

I'm horribly busy so don't have time to write reams of analysis, but the juxtaposition of two announcements Monday really caught my eye:

1) Nokia (NOK) announcing a Windows-based netbook (sorry, "booklet"). I wonder if they'll ship all of them with 3G modems embedded - how will that play with retailers like Carphone Warehouse that want to sell them on multiple operators' networks? Most of the MNOs don't (yet) sell data-only SIM-only packages, so will the stores have to stock multiple operator-specific "flavors" of the PC?

I am constantly amazed by the groupthink in parts of the mobile industry, and the shameless and unquestioning way that careless, woolly figures get rolled out, time and again.

"There are 4.5 billion mobile subscribers"
"The next billion Internet users will be on mobile"
"160m smartphones are sold annually"
"LTE will deliver 100Mbit/s speeds"

T-Mobile can be a paradox from an analyst's viewpoint. At one level, it pushes hard on mobile Internet access, with its early provision of Web'n'Walk, and its significant pace in evolving its network to HSUPA and eventually LTE. It also has a sizable WiFi hotspot presence, albeit as overpriced as many of its peers. It is probably the most evangelical of Europe's operators when it comes to selling embedded-3G notebooks, with 7 models from 6 vendors on its German arm's website (It's UK business is more dongle-centric).

Yet at an application level, it confuses. It has pretty much embraced the open-Internet worldview - when was the last time you heard anyone discuss on-portal T-Zones stuff? I've seen a demo of some sort of Facebook / Ovi cross-platform portal it is pitching, although it's not obvious that it will be accessible to non-T access customers.

I've been in Amsterdam with the WiMAX Forum for the past couple of days, at their global summit event. It's been an interesting contrast with the LTE Summit in Berlin a fortnight ago.

In format terms, the LTE event was more of a traditional conference, with bigger plenary sessions. The WiMAX event was more of a trade show, with more exhibition visitors than delegates to the speaker sessions.

Something to ponder:

• With a mobile phone, you have two tie-ins to keep you in a subscription-type relationship with your operator: your number and the handset subsidy.

• With PSTN or ADSL connections, you also have the number, which necessitates a subscription-type relationship. In addition, the need for the copper line to be maintained and terminate on a switch port ensures that only continuous types of service are feasible.

• With public WiFi, you can have a subscription, or you can purchase adhoc connectivity when and where you want it.

So what about mobile broadband? As modems get cheaper, or included in PCs, subsidy becomes irrelevant. And there's no need for a permanent "number" - apart from the mechanistic requirement of using a SIM card. But there's no real reason for a customer to be a "subscriber" with an ongoing relationship, rather than buying connectivity on a transaction basis.

One of the things that struck me from the LTE summit last week was that the way that some standards bodies operate (notably 3GPP) risks, entrenching legacy business models for operators and others.

This is ironic, as many standards groups, staffed by engineering-type people, try to avoid the whole issue of commercial models. This is either because they have limited understanding of that side of the industry or limited time - or perhaps are worried about regulatory and anti-trust implications.