It’s long, but it’s worth it. Tomi Ahonen of the blog Communities Dominates Brands lists no less than 20 shifts that have occurred in the telecom industry over the last 10 years. The shifts are:
Mobile phones vs fixed landline phones
Change from voice to SMS
Move from enterprise to consumer centric
Smartphone customers
Postpaid vs prepaid
Subsidised handsets vs unsubsidised
Operator (carrier) designed phones
The expansion of the mobile phone’s capabilities from one to eight
Networks and their coverage
Want to see the antenna of the phone
Multiple subscriptions and phones
Replacement cycles
The mobile phone as an aspirational thing
Phone and fashion
CDMA vs GSM
The SIM card and unlocked phones
The Receiving Party Pays model shifting to Calling Party Pays
Clamshell form factor vs candybar
Emergence of childrens phones
Youth need to text blindly
It’s a long post, full of insights, including this one:
Ten years ago the primary service on cellphones was voice; and many American top telecoms experts in wireless still today will repeat this faulty mantra “but in the end, we must remember that the cellphone is primarily a voice communciation device”. TOTALLY WRONG. And don’t buy into the iPhone hoopla (so, eh, its a.. media device?). No! Don’t buy into the RIM propaganda (oh, I get it, you mean wireless email?). No, as all mobile telecoms execs in all leading markets – from Scandinavia to Italy and Spain to Ireland and the UK to Israel to Singapore to South Korea – know: the only addictive service on cellphones is SMS text messaging. The killer app – the only killer app – is SMS.
(Emphasis added.)