Next Five: Future of the Industry

As John and I finish off our Mobile Muse blogging (for the time being, anyway) the time is right to look towards the future. Without claiming to be experts in this industry, we will try to use our imagination and passion for all things mobile to try to guess the things to come. Here are my top five predictions for Canadian wireless industry for the next five years:

1. 3G will not take off in Canada until the 2010 Olympics (and possibly, even later). In a country that has some of the highest prices for mobile internet in the world and no culture of using value-added services the utility of 3G is minimal. And don't forget about the investment into cellular infrastructure and upgraded handsets... Moreover, population of Canada is clustered in such a way that cable-supplied broadband is affordable and omnipresent (3G is a popular broadband option in some markets - Italy, for instance). The Olympics can act as a catalyst here simply because Canada will need to present itself in a good light and also cater to roaming needs of 3G-aware customers from all over the world.
2. MP3 playback with a standard headphone jack will become a standard feature for low-end and midrange phones, penetrating over two thirds of the Canadian handset market. There is simply too much to gain and virtually nothing to lose here. The cost of putting that functionality into the mobile is minimal, yet it makes customers want more music (read: buy a handset with more memory + a carrier music service subscription) which translates into neat ARPU gains.
3. QR Code or a similar datatag standard will bring the long-awaited change in mobile internet usage. Not many people want to bother entering URLs on a mobile phone. Sooner or later, one of the carriers will figure out the advantages of QR codes and launch a line of compatible handsets while earning millions through creating marketing solutions for business customers.
4. J2ME will grow slowly but Flash Lite will become very popular. There is a lot of promise in J2ME MIDP3.0, but it will take a lot of time to get finalized, implemented in handsets and delivered to Canada. Meanwhile, the advantages of Flash Lite when it comes to simple interactive experiences and media delivery will be hard to ignore. The result - one of the carriers will launch compatible handsets and several multimedia services (operators have a lot of spare wireless bandwidth now that they scared off most of mobile internet users with the new rates).
   
5. Carriers will offer increasingly lucrative contract terms to retain the customer base. Now that they don't own your phone number, it will be necessary for them to actually compete with each other (even if it's only to get you to sign the deal). Who knows, maybe they'll start throwing a couple of megabytes of EDGE traffic as an incentive?