Carriers Get a Wake-up Call

Carriers are rapidly losing their power in today's mobile ecosystem, and don't seem entirely aware of that fact. Companies such as Google, Amazon and Apple have already stripped carriers of some of their power by setting up their own billing relationships with consumers, delivering GPS data outside of the carriers' own data — even by building application stores. All the carriers are left with are their pipes and their relationships with a large number of consumers. Carriers need to stop grasping at the past and move forward by acting as a broker among the various constituencies that want network access.