Do consumers really care?
To date, no one is sure whether people want to watch full-length television programs on small mobile screens. Nonetheless, vendors were quick to claim that network bandwidth problems were the reason users were keeping away, and began championing new radio-technologies. HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access), a network technology aimed at increasing 3G transmission rates, is the current solution they offer. It requires a network upgrade and new handset type. Alternatively, Nokia is championing DVBH (Digital Video Broadcasting Handheld), which requires building entirely new non-cellular networks, not to mention buying new Nokia handsets.

Mobile TV is but the most recent network and device dependent data service hyped by vendors. Mobile Internet was the first. Leveraging the Internet hype, vendors recognized the huge sales potential if carriers could be persuaded to data-enable the network.

A clever and recurring strategy emerged: piggyback on widely-popular, non-mobile services, then simply add the prefix "mobile" to them. Internet became Mobile Internet. TV became Mobile TV. By leveraging popular services, vendors were able to persuade carriers that porting services was easy, and that the mass-market would rapidly adopt already popular services on mobile devices, with revenue to follow. Self-financed analyst reports, combined with operators caught in a prisoner's dilemma made it an easy sell.

As with Mobile TV, however, the usability of Mobile Internet proved terrible. The pull-based, click and wait experience is probably the single main factor behind the failure of Mobile Internet; a failure, that is, for all but the vendors. In 2000, the year in which first major European operators launched Mobile Internet, Ericsson and Nokia's network sales reached approximately $23.7 billion. In that year, Nokia alone sold 128,000,000 handsets, generating Euro 21.8B in sales.

The carriers, though closer to the user, have also contributed their share of self-serving, unpopular service concepts; the mobile portal being the most prominent. The portal, a user-nightmare, was neither created, nor has it evolved with the user in mind. Rather, during carrier consolidation and the creation of global carriers, portals were established in an effort to build brand recognition. Vodafone Live was, and remains a tool to strengthen the brand, poor user-experience notwithstanding.

After the failure of so many network and device dependent services, one would expect that the industry generally, and carriers specifically, might ask fundamental questions before investing billions on networks, frequencies, device subsidies and marketing campaigns.

However, given the carrier's "prisoner's dilemma", the tendency to believe the latest hype is strong. No one wants to ignore industry analysts or the media, and allow the competitor to move forward alone. However, at some point, should one not suspect the message from an interested messenger?