And Now for the Other Predictions

1. There will be an accelerated period of M&A and spectrum swaps among the operators. There is a story yet be written involving Sprint and T-Mobile. Don't expect Leap and Metro to be standalone providers a year from now. And the capital markets won't support three more 4G wholesale networks, so expect consolidation or outright spectrum purchases among Clearwire, LightSquared, and DISH.


2. A Major Content Brand Offers or Bundles Wireless Service. With 4G, additional spectrum, and new wholesale networks, I expect one of the major content brands -- think Apple, Google, Amazon, Netflix -- to offer a retail wireless service with their own "bundle" for content. A video successor to the original Kindle content model.


3. Also on the M&A front, expect consolidation in the handset space, likely involving Microsoft, Nokia, and RIM. Among other possible suitors for RIM: HP, Dell, Cisco, SAP, IBM, Google, Huawei.


4. Apple Will Have a Hiccup. Expectations are so high, across so many "ecosystems", that something has to give, at some point. First, the company's next iPhone has to be more along the "revolutionary" than "evolutionary" scale -- think LTE and major hardware redesign -- in order to maintain momentum. Second, with increasingly competitive devices from other OSs, across a greater range of price points, the operators could stage a quiet revolt against Apple, where the iPhone is slowly becoming an economic net negative. Third, I believe Apple will continue to face challenges in disrupting the TV/living room ecosystem, even though this is one of the company's strategic priorities for 2012.


5. Mobile Payments: Wait Till Next Year. There is huge activity in mobile payments, but I think it will disappoint in 2012. The technology is there -- but the space is overly fragmented and disaggregated, with too many competing initiatives and lack of agreement among key stakeholders. Plus, the advantage of paying by mobile device, over equally convenient and sticky alternatives, has not been demonstrated.


6. Cable and Wireless: Strike Three, You're Out. Cable has taken three runs at wireless, and has failed each time. The VZW-SpectrumCo deal provided a good return on their spectrum investment, but I am not expecting cable operators to be hugely successful in reselling Verizon Wireless service (if they are permitted to do so). Some 60-70% of cable company subs are already tied up in some sort of family plan from VZW or AT&T anyway. One opportunity would be an LTE bolt-on to broadband service, but the question is whether VZW's wholesale rates are attractive enough for cable to offer an attractive price.


7. Consolidation in the enterprise mobility space. Enterprise mobile is on fire, but there is an oversupply of companies offering silo'd solutions for enterprise apps, device management, security, mobile policy, etc. Expect healthy deal activity, involving major enterprise software players such as Oracle, SAP, Salesforce, IBM, and so on, as they intensify their focus on mobile and try to create a one-stop-shop solution for enterprises.


8. Tablets Take a Pause in the Enterprise Space. I think companies are going to step back and do a bigger re-think about what their "post PC" strategy is really going to look like. They might realize they too hastily purchased iPads, and might instead consider the new range of "ultrabooks" -- basically the next generation of netbook, which provides quick and easy access to the Web and cloud-based services. Instead of one-size-fits-all devices, we'll see bifurcation in the enterprise market, with products developed for "content consumers" and "content creators".


9. Premium Pricing for Video Content. Digital media players are actively deploying their "content everywhere" strategy. This is going to put pressure on wireless operators, to decide how to price for rich media content such as TV programming and movies over 4G cellular networks. Today's usage-based pricing plans fall apart very quickly when video enters the picture. Expect premium prices for rich content and other "experiments", such as ad-supported models.


10. Rise of the Tactical Wireless Network. We are entering a new framework for how to think about wireless networks, going from broad air cover to more surgical coverage and capacity solutions. This is going to come together in 2012, around combinations of het-nets involving small cells, Super Wi-Fi networks, and distributed antenna systems/remote radio heads.

Bonus prediction: Thinking "Beyond the App". I am beginning to see signs of "app fatigue", setting the stage for what I call the next generation app experience. This will involve a more robust combination of HTML 5, widgets, and hybrid apps/browsers. Click here for a more detailed explanation of what this might look like.