Hot Industry Topics for 2010

1. Cord cutting/Price Pressure – this means the on-going trend for consumers shifting from a fixed line to a mobile line.  This could well be even higher profile with the launch of 4G/LTE.  As ever,  anyone that can genuinely help operators in their on-going drive to reduce costs will do well in 2010.
2. Rise of Mobile Advertising – with the M&A action in the market at present with Google and Apple snapping up mobile ad companies, you can be sure that we are going to see a new wave of mobile ad opportunities.
3. Net neutrality as a global phenomenon  - While big in the USA for the past few years, this is becoming a much bigger discussion in the EU and elsewhere.
4. Proliferation of smart devices (phones, netbooks, notebooks, tablets) and apps. – Apps dominated the mindshare in 2009, and while they will continues to be big in 2010, the devices will hold the spotlight – particularly the new tablet devices.
5. Rise of mobile data traffic (and revenues?) – a double-edged sword for many operators, as growing data traffic due to devices like iPhone, is not linearly linked with growing revenue, so there will be a lot of focus on how to square that circle.
6. Network evolution (IP build-out, early 4G) – there will be a lot of build out in 2010, but expect it to take longer than originally planned and be a lot more problematic.  Still 2010 will see significant investment in this area.
7. Next gen business models (4G, Cloud, Value chain, M2M) and monetization strategies (advertising, micropayments) – This has been an evolving argument for the past three years and I expect we will see more advances in areas such as advertising business models - particularly with the earlier comment about thew growth of mobile advertising
8. Customer experience/ retention/ wallet share – Expect this to focus on a new systemic approach to customer experience management – and linkage into policy management and social networking.
9. Continuing, but slower growth of Cloud Services - Less hype than 2009, but will continue inexorably.

Let me know your thoughts on this and whether you see it panning out differently in 2010!