Hey, it's not only spam that wireless carriers have to worry about. According to a 1,200-person survey done by Bear Stearns, it's apparently going to be far less lucrative to pursue new wireless customers in the U.S. The investment firm said new customers will only spend $30 a month, making it difficult to make much of a profit from them. Given this bleak view on wireless economics, it may mean carriers will take more interest in pre-paid services and MVNO relationships.
The Bear Stearns survey is the second less-than-positive take on a fast-emergingconsumer technology. Earlier this year, J.P. Morgan conducted a survey that suggested only 35% people had an interest in subscribing to satellite radio. J.P. Morgan also discovered that 62% of people interested in satellite radio would want it for commercial-free music, rather than sports or personalities such as Howard Stern, who signed a US$100-milion with Sirius.

If spam on your personal computer wasn't enough of a hassle, Wireless Services said 43% of all text messages sent on U.S. networks last year were spam, compared with 18% in 2003. The wireless messaging company said it arrived at its figures based on the 1.2 billion spam messages it blocked last year.
If Wireless Services' information is accurate, it could pose a huge issue for carriers that are heavily relying on more data traffic to boost ARPU. Can you imagine the kickback from consumers who incur extra charges due to a flood of spam messages into their e-mail boxes? The carriers are going to have act quickly and decisively to ensure wireless spam hasn't got out of hand – assuming it's not there already, of course! That said, there must be some pretty happy anti-spam software makers looking at another fertile market for growth.

BusinessWeek has jumped into will-they-or-won't-they arena when it comes to an IPO by Vonage, which has raised more than US$200 million in venture capital. According to the magazine, several VCs believe Vonage will go public this year but investors could be spooked by Vonage's less than stellar retention rate. In a recent posting, Om Malik wrote that Vonage is adding 10,000 new subscribers a week, and it has surpassed 450,000 customers. The company has made it clear its subscriber target for this year is 800,000 to 1M.
For those you who read this blog, I'm in the camp that Vonage could do an IPO that would give a market capitalization of more than US$2-billion based on how publicly-traded rival 8X8 Inc. is currently valued. As someone who reported on the dot-com boom and wrote far too many stories about twenty-something billionaires, I'm as cautious as the next guy when it comes to touting IPOs of emerging technology companies. That said, Vonage has subscriber momentum and investors like nothing better than a sexy story involving a business they can sort of understand. Before anyone gets too carried away, it should be noted that Vonage may be bleeding badly given how much it's spending on marketing to attract subscribers, and competition will intensify in a big way when the carriers and cablecos get really serious about Internet telephony.

Mozilla has released Firefox 1.0.1 that fixes 17 security flaws – the most serious of which lets an attacker gain full control over someone else's personal computer. While Mozilla deserves credit for being quick to release a new version of Firefox so quickly after 1.0, you wonder if computer users will think twice about leaving Internet Explorer for Firefox. Personally, I think Firefox has plenty of early-adopter runway left before it runs into reluctance from potential users concerned about security issues. Most people who decide to switch to Firefox are savvy computer users and should, in theory, be aware of the importance of security. It's when Firefox moves into the mainstream that security will become more of a concern.
Speaking of Firefox's momentum, WebSideStory reports Firefox's market share climbed 15% from Jan. 14 to Feb. 18. The browser now has 5.69% of the market, compared with 4.95% in mid-January. Meanwhile, use of non-Firefox Mozilla and Netscape browsers fell to 2.47% from 2.64%. This spells bad news for Opera, which used to have some of Firefox's cache. WebSideStory CEO Jeff Lunsford said he's increasingly pragmatic about Firefox's goal of 10% market share by the end of this year unless Mozilla spends more money on marketing.

Looks like Skype is coming back into the spotlight as lower prices for Internet telephony service are causing some people to wonder whether VOIP will eventualy be free. A story in the International Herald Tribune quotes FCC chairman Michael Powell as saying “he knew it was all over when I downloaded Skype”. In conversations I've had with telecom consultants and executives, there is a growing notion that carriers and cablecos will simply bundle voice with other services and it will become indiscernible as a “business”. While I'm loathe to dismiss Skype, I increasingly believe features will cause people to pay for Internet telephony as opposed to cheap or free long-distance. The money will be in compelling value-added services that are simple to use. If Vonage and AT&T's CallVantage want to be viable in the long run, they should stop bashing each other over price, and start telling consumers about their cool features.

I've been playing around with the idea high-speed Internet networks dramatically change how Web-based applications and services are delivered to business and residential customers. The theory is that barriers to entry are pretty much eliminated because services can by delivered to anyone anywhere in the world. While Internet telephony has captured most of the attention as the emerging Web-based services, VOIP just scratches the service of what's coming down the pipe (excuse the pun!). As carriers and cablecos look for more revenue, they are going to be pumping down all kinds of services developed internally and through partners. Then, there will be third parties such as Vonage, Salesforce.com and Apple (iTunes) that will try get a piece of the action.
My initial thinking is network operators that have customer relationships (a.k.a carriers and cablecos) have an inherent advantage because they can easily layer services on the network and selling them to an existing customer base. For people interested, I wrote a lengthy feature on the emergence of Web-based service in the National Post earlier this week. I'd be curious if the theory I'm espousing resonates with anyone or whether there are other takes out there.