LG

What is your genuine opinion on the course of the mobile industry. What are your corporate hunches?

Do you think any of the big 3 manufacteringcompanies are going to fold or merge together

What about the carriers? Are we going to one GSM vs one CDMA in the next decade?

Where do you want to see the mobile industry go? Are they ever going to implant transceivers in our jaws?

Voice out your opinions and what you want to see regarding the future of our industry. You never know... you might just get it right.

And if by some freak occurence you call it right, you get a cookie.

With the VZW and AT&T buying up 700 MHz for LTE, I would assume 4G is close at hand.I was at CTIA and witnessed 30 MBPS up and down.Thats fast; however I spoke to one of Nortels engineers and they believe they will be at 100 MBPS up and down by next year.That would be this year now. A Verizon rep told me they will be rolling out LTE late this year (2009).100 MBPS would be like downloading and uploading an entire HD movie to your phone in less than a minute. During every recession and even the depression technology kept rolling.Technology cares not for the woes of mans finances and keeps advancing.So, I predict the future will be fast!Communication and entertainment companies will become competitors.Verizon and AT&T will have the capability to wirelessly give us all our entertainment and communication needs.Broadcast TV will be sent to our phones as well as our living rooms. Next; we will spray our TVs onto any surface, morph our phones into watches, solar powered everything,and change the color of our phones with the push of a button. Shortly after that, 2012 the end game! However, technology cares not and will continue rolling.

I don't believe companies will be merging together. Competition creates a flow of money. Plus I believe the general public likes having a choice and the feeling of different companies fighting for their business. The way the industry is headed right now Data is the new money maker. Phones with extra features are what is selling the most because that is what reps are pushing to make themselves money. Technology is what will save us from financial hardtimes, and when something is very money driven it moves quickly. The bottom line is we are in a great industry!

I could see Sprint being bought out by Verizon in the next few years or so....

Corporate mergers have not been beneficial for me. When Alltel was consumed by Verizon I lost coverage. My wife had Verizon through work and had to go outside to make calls. I had great coverage but now I too have to go outside for calls. All they did was reap the benefits of the Alltel name and their customers but did not keep Alltel's highly rated (Consumer's Report) services.

All I can say is that besides of the economic downturn we are dealing with mobile industry is still at its best

With Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile going to LTE 4G, CDMA will pretty much disappear in the US, and probably NA. Supposedly even MetroPCS is planning to migrate to LTE.

Sprint has already launched WiFi 4G.

I think VZW will be 'the one' since they are already part of Vodafone, a large European GSM provider. Once VZW deploys 4G LTE, your phone will truly be globally usable.

Further, smart phones running true OS like Windows, Android, Palm, etc. will really take off once 4G is widely available.

In the case of AT&T, they will probably have the best merging of Internet services with cell phones because of their large DSL market.

If anybody folds, it will be Sprint. I think LTE will prove to be better than WiFi.

Did I mention touch screen will be the dominant interface? Even with computers, touch, or virtual, keyboards (like in _Iron Man_ and _Star Trek TNG_) will become very common. I love my EnV Touch keyboard, since I text a lot, but soon a real keyboard will be lame. For example, the LG Versa gives you the option of attaching a keyboard, but the phone works very well in full touchboard mode. Rght, there's that other phone from the people who do the MacOS.

Posted by geishaslave on 01 Mar 2010 13:57 PM:

Did I mention touch screen will be the dominant interface?

Interesting posit. I have the Env Touch and prefer the real keyboard. The larger size gives it more versitility and functions. A touch screen keyboard will always be smaller than a fold out keyboard (but not necessarily a slide down one) even if the screen is full phone size because it has to allow for a viewing of what is being typed.

I can t ever see everybody going touch screen as there will always be a segment that wants things simple with big keys and something easy to see. That said, I think touch will be the dominant hardware design over the next few years.

WiFi has been around for quite some time. You mean WiMax correct ??? Besides Sprint the other "Big" 3 are going ahead with LTE. Does anyone know the price to make a CDMA tower to GSM (or vice versa) ??? Or how about WiMax to LTE (or vice versa) ???

LTE is the wave of the future

So let's see......given the size of the Big "2" wireless providers, I doubt that they will ever be involved in another mega merger.  So it seems that the only option for future carrier mergers would be Sprint / T Mobile.  Obviously there are different technologies now, but what will the landscape look like in 3-5 years.

There is no future for either carrier on their own.....AT&T and VZW are quickly shutting them down.

I don't see a merger between the any in the big four legally feasible.  A merger would give the company to great of market share and would likely be shot down by anti-trust laws.

I don't think there's any chance that VZW would buy out Sprint because there is no way Verizon would adopt Sprints plans or way of business (easy on credit, ATAM, ect...) which is why a lot of people are with Sprint now-a-days anyways.  Sprint is currently growing after their HUGE downfall when they merged with Nextel. It would take a catastrophy to slow them down now, imo.

Totally Agree, VZW has no interest in Sprint. I think the interesting thing will be the "band consolidation project" which will allow Sprint to move the majority of its CDMA services to 800 mhz -- which will penetrate much better... and then finally get rid of nextel... or at least until there is quad band nextel devices that will work on like 4g maybe... who knows...

“There is beachfront property in 800 MHz that we can use for CDMA,” Hesse said, adding it can be used for better coverage in cities and into buildings and help the carrier drive down in-market roaming costs. Those costs are associated with customers that might roam onto a competitor’s network even though they are in a market where Sprint Nextel offers service. Hesse noted that those roaming charges used to go predominately to Alltel Wireless, but are now going to rival Verizon Wireless, which purchased most of Alltel’s assets.

AT&T is going down!

and cell phones will be iPads and Galaxy Tabs with face time soon.

Actually the easiest merge would be if AT&T took over T-Mobile because of the SIMS requirements for their phone units. As for whether it would happen, only time will tell. If you look at the way all these companies came into existence... they started with Bellsouth. So it has been at least 10 years since the FCC forced that split. I would say research the tenure on that agreement. If you notice many of the smaller companies are being swallowed up again.

Forcasts:

2 years:  Metro PCS is in the Top 4

3-5 years:  The majority of plans give voice as a add-on no change feature.

Posted by Franchise66 on 16 Dec 2010 04:33 AM:

Forcasts:

2 years:  Metro PCS is in the Top 4

3-5 years:  The majority of plans give voice as a add-on no change feature.

 I concur

I don't think that the companies or manufacturers will all completely merge together. There has to be some variation within the market, because sonsumers like to have options! Competition helps to keep prices down.