On being floored

This post just floored me, specifically this pair of comments:

Carriers say they'll make up for the lost revenue through fees for the Web access that makes content downloads possible. "The content piece is not as meaningful for service providers as access," says Kevin Packingham, vice-president for product development at Sprint Nextel. "That's what's really going to move the needle." Adds AT&T's chief marketing officer, David Christopher: "We never said these content areas would take over the world."

Au contraire, mon frere VP/CMO. It's all about content. Without content there is no reason to have access, and without sharing the revenue of the content, realizing the investment a carrier has made in the infrastructure to deliver access is going to be very difficult.

The continued challenge for a Service Provider is dealing with how to become a value add service provider, not just the Big Dumb Pipe Provider. If a carrier becomes the latter, it's just a matter of time.

That's the true opportunity IMS/SDP offers for a carrier, and having a unified vision on what elements of the consumer profile will be made available to 3rd parties and what will be kept private to allow value added "sticky" services to be generated, launched and managed is the challenge to solve.