Mobile Business Finally Moving Beyond "Feeds and Speeds?"

The telecom industry is turning away from an emphasis on “speeds and feeds” to focus on customer experience, says Jean Foster, NeuStar VP. In many ways, that is parallel to a similar change PC suppliers have had to make over the last 10 years, when the value of raw computing power ceased to be as important as many had believed.


Foster notes that, at Mobile World Congress in 2011, the show buzz was all about fourth generation networks (4G) and Long Term Evolution. In 2012, there was a much-greater focus on the experiences mobile networks can offer. 


That's a significant change. From a marketing standpoint, it means more attention will be paid to what a 4G network means for users, other than "faster" access. For an industry that worries rightly about becoming a commodity supplier of simple "access" services, that is a useful change.