| The Year 2008 – reflecting on the U.S. Market by Todd Gibson – Co-Founder and Co-Editor, WIIE As I reflect on 2008 on the wireless telecommunications industry in the United States, this was the year of “Build it and they will come!” All of us can agree that the large wireless telecommunication carriers were all struggling with the exorbitant capital required for their nationwide deployment and regional expansions to improve network services, deepen broadband capabilities and improve customer perceptions. All of their publicly and market activities can give us insight into their planning for 2009 but I will give my outlook at the end of this article. Let's reflect together on 2008, I can easily quantify several high level verticals where the carriers gave public insight into their struggles and long term plans. As I analyze the activities, I am drawn back to Newton's 3rd Law of Motion - “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” You are probably wondering, what does physics have to do with wireless telecommunications industry? In my opinion, there are four real reasons that companies will make significant changes to their service offerings. The four drivers are: high operating expenditures reducing EBIDTA, increase revenue per user, network capacity peaked, and tackle rising competitiveness from competing companies. As I reflect back on the significant activities for 2008, I attempt to understand which category this new product, new service or change falls into. With that said, let's take a look at the activities that come to my mind. 3G Networks Finally Unleashed Starting in 2007, Verizon completed their network upgrade from EV-DO to EV-DO rev A. At the end of 2007, Sprint followed suit with a EV-DO rev A network upgrade. During 2008, both AT&T and T-Mobile completed their network enhancements from GSM to UMTS. AT&T and T-Mobile reacted quickly in their marketing to hamper Sprint's and Verizon's onslaught of advertising touting their 3G networks. At the end of 2008, all of the major carriers were finishing up large network upgrades both nationally and regionally where coverage density was not adequate for a customer to acquire 3G speeds. Globally, 3G voice and data services have proliferated several years before the U.S. markets demanded or required. With the U.S. market reaching 80+ percent penetration in wireless services, the demands reached a pinnacle requiring the carriers to enhance their networks to support the large number of people utilizing the wireless networks more frequently. In regards to 3G in 2008, I feel that the carriers were working feverishly to deploy and deliver 3G services due to network capacity constraints, increase revenue per user and to tackle the rising tide of competitiveness to reduce churn by creating loyalty. Handsets – Not the Same Handset Your Dad Relied On The wireless industry celebrated its 25th anniversary this past October. Handsets over the last 4 years or so have not changed as much as they did this year. This year, industry changing handsets were delivered to the market place by Apple, LG, HTC, Samsung, and RIM. Just to name a few of the phones that had a tremendous impact including the 3G iPhone from AT&T, G1 phone from T-Mobile, Storm from Verizon, Behold from T-Mobile, Instinct by Sprint, and the list goes on. The handset market in the year 2008 transformed the handset industry from a one based primarily on voice and email services to one that functions more like a mini-PC handset with full browser, navigation assistance and a countless number of applications from 3rd party developers. This development has opened a multi-billion dollar industry for mobile applications in the marketplace with open handsets. This market shift was enabled by the launch of the 3G networks across all carriers and the co-development of industry shifting handsets. If we go back just a few years ago, who would have thought that Apple and Google would develop mobile handsets and that these handsets would create rapid development from the existing mobile handset manufactures such as Sony Ericcson, RIM, Samsung and more in an effort to survive. The development of the handsets were originally intended to take advantage of the carrier's new 3G networks for voice and email services as the years past with only a small minority of customers actually consuming large amounts of monthly bandwidth. Not only were the carriers shocked with the proliferation of data rich 3rd party applications but they also were taken back on the consumption of megabytes on a regular basis by a majority of its 3G data customers. With the phenomenon of the iPhone craze, the industry realized the power and revenue potentials from the handset and the applications that can be developed for the new handsets. Looking at the four categories of whys, I put the significant shift in handset offerings in the network capacity peaked, increase revenue per user and to tackle competitiveness in the marketplace. 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