I agree that advertising will help to facilitate services, but also with the comment above on scale: telecoms is a nearly 2 trillion US$ business, and marketing-and-advertising are at least one third of that. So the numbers for mobile advertising are rather modest, but may still be crucial in helping people to try services for the first time, or making them more affordable. One small caution: most of what is now labelled “mobile advertising” is in fact below-the-line activitiy, larketing promos and similar. Most mainline, big-agency, advertising, has no notion of going mobile to any great degree yet. But internet, yes: online ads are proving more resilient than most offline forms, especially print.

The point on spectrum is good, and we should avoid the sad messes in several other countries, but we should also watch out for probable dead ends, such as the much-touted but badly-lagging WiMax – the approach of Nokia, leader in devices, and Ericsson, top network seller, is instructive.

With 4 billion mobile or cellular subscribers, the small device is indeed probably the real key. A good point on advertising, as costs are definitely a barrier. But again, reality check – 1.3 bn out of a 650 bn USD industry?? Even 7.6 bn out of by then maybe 850 bn?? But maybe it will do better, at least in countries like Ireland.