Vendors eating their own lunch

Telecomm equipment vendors are running around clueless like headless chicken. They jump on the bandwagon of any new technology and let cob webs grow on their long term plans, so called "visionary strategies".

Here's how the thinking goes:

"ok, so we think that it's time to develop a new standard, let's call it UMTS. Go and develop it, what are you waiting for?. Ok, so let us add HSDPA (even before R99 is out of the door) because you know what? Downlink data traffic is generally higher and therfore high speed data is needed. But look, you can get HSUPA now, because the traffic does not tip that much towards downlink afterall, uplink is important too you know.
We can also fill our offerings with lots of features, that nobody wants. We can quote you the advanced super dooper power control feature that gives you 0.2dB gain in your budget and give you the additional 10cm (in coverage) you were yearning for.
And by the way, we found the killer application, at last! It's no other than .... "mobile TV!" can you believe that! it was under our noses all the time, how could we have missed it? (Here they suddently realise that the standard they worked hard to get to this stage is not effecient for mobile TV. )

But damn it! WiMAx is out now, and everybody is talking about it, so lets develop that too. And we also think that your life is not ubiquitous enough, so we will develop all the technologies that will enable that ubiquity, and the tools that make the applications ubiquitous and the ubiquitous people that make the tools that make the applications ...etc etc.

Also, because we think that everything will become packet orineted, we are investing in technologies that will packetise your life. We will VoIP your speech over the internet, and that will make calls cheaper. sorry? how are you going to make more money? ehm... we think that if the calls are cheaper then you can lay off lots of people and that will save you lots of money and you will continue to be a proftiable operator.

We will also develop IMS, and a suit of applications that you will need, such as advanced call forwarding (advanced call forwarding forwards calls to any telephone close to you wherever you are - cannebalising the mobility idea in the first place)

So here's our vision: a ubiquitous world where speech is diced up and sent in every direction. People download lots of useful things on the move, like pornography, and are constantly hooked to the plug-in drug. Telephones ringing around you as you walk, and lots and lots of spam".