Software companies run on Internet time. Speed is everything, and if the product that is shipped doesn't quite work, it can always be fixed in the next release. Then there's the wireless-carrier industry, which works on telephone time. The goal from the get-go is 99.999% reliability, so the rule for both hardware and software is test and test some more, to make sure that products work properly and don't interfere with the operation of the network. Telephone time is the toughest standard of all.

This "telephone time" idea is at the core of the industry's collapse. What's the point of having expensive "5 nines" gear in the core of the network, when handsets are forever warning users about dying batteries; when coverage is spotty at best in rural/suburban areas and often congested in urban areas; when random, abrupt, unexplainable hangups are commonplace; when many customers are locked into long-term contracts anyway; and more.

A retail model in which carriers are expected to subsidize the cost of phones and handhelds means the network operators are in control of what gets sold.

This is where Europe got it right with GSM: control access through simple, interoperable tokens, and let the customers buy their own equipment.

"[Carriers] run the risk of being reduced to dumb pipes," says Richard Siber, a partner in Accenture.

Ah, so it's back to the old debate between the stupid network and the intelligent network. Didn't we already finish that one?