Pity the telecoms groups. They are in disarray. They have found out that the public thinks them generally to be thieves, liars and vagabonds. And that is the charitable view. Meanwhile China, where most of the phones are made, has opted for 4G and not given advance notice.

Revenues are down as calls become cheaper and the public is incessantly demanding transparency in pricing. And network operators feel they are being cut out of the lucrative search advertising market.

So what can Vodafone, France Telecom, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Hutchison Whampoa, Telecom Italia and Cingular do to regain the high ground? The first thing is to arrange a meeting. OK, it is the mobile industry’s biggest annual trade show in Barcelona next week. And every can site and gasp in wonder at the amazing profit increases of Google.

Then comes the idea: why not copy Google on to the mobile network. In Europe a large percentage of subscribers are expected to have access to mobile internet at broadband speeds by the end of 2007 — not as fast as China 4G but let us take a step at a time — and using a search engine on a mobile phone will be possible.

Google, of course, has been expecting this and already has some deals in place with mobile operators and handset makers. But the mobile industry, suffering from attacks on the profits it derived in the golden years, would really like to go it alone and have the money for themselves.

What are the problems?

A joint approach is essential. All of the mobile networks will need to work in concert and make an offering that runs across the system. This will not be easy. Getting everyone to agree with an SMS standard was difficult enough. But if it could be done — and that is a big if — there are hundreds of millions of potential users and advertising revenue potential beyond the dreams of avarice.

Will it work?

The problem is that if you say search engine to any member of the general public they think Google. They do not think Orange, O2, T-Mobile or Vodafone — the four biggies — they think Google.

But, yes, it can be done. It was done in China where Baidu kicked Google firmly in the Googlies and took first place. That is a very specialized market. Can the telecoms groups get their act together and agree on a standard for a search engine, get someone to set it up and run it, make it work across all of their networks and then get the public to use it. It is a very, very major task. But this is the Year of the Pig and maybe, just maybe, pigs can fly.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, February 3rd, 2007 at 7:57 pm under Cell phones, Google.

Read more entries by Gareth Powell.
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