This is very interesting, I have over 10 years experience working in the mobile telecoms industry. Here are my theories on how this could change the market/anal

This is very interesting, I have over 10 years experience working in the mobile telecoms industry. Here are my theories on how this could change the market/analysis: 1. This reduces the friction in switching networks, no 'SIM Card' Lock in. It's a pain to keep having to switch sim cards. Some people carry 2 phones here in Africa so they can take advantage of different deals by different carriers. 2. Due to Point 1, This will face push back from carriers 3. Unless there is some incentive for them to get this carriers want to make switching costs as high as possible. To avoid churn. If it succeeds: 4. This changes the game in voice calling. Currently you sim is linked to a specific carrier, you only logon to their network all traffic (Local, International Voice, SMS, Data) is carried by them. What if you could route International calls traffic via X, and then local calls via Y? 5. WhatsAPP is most likely the company that will get the largest payoff from this. They are a few years ahead of everyone else, and have just launched voice calling. 6. Super-normal profits are over for operators 7. Actual Network quality (vs marketing about network quality) will become more important. 8. This will create an opportunity for players that are focused purely on network quality, and not marketing. 9. Carriers spend tons on marketing, failed product launches etc. At times this outstrips their engineering spend. Some even believe this is not a core competency and outsource IT/Engineering. Any carrier that does the opposite, could disrupt the incumbents 10. The base-stations (BSS/BSC) becomes more valuable, companies that own these have high value assets. They could then lease it out to other players. A few years back operators in Africa were selling off their base stations to American Towers [0] to fund their marketing budgets. At the time, i thought this was not a very good decision. Now i am convinced it was a terrible decision. The network of base stations is probably one of the most valuable assets a carrier has. If i think of anything else, will post back here. [0] http://www.americantower.com/corporateus/global-country-selector/index.htm http://www.americantower.com/corporateus/global-country-sele...