Most of us can remember the second half of the 1990s. Outsiders refer to it as the “Go-Go Ninety’s,” but those of us in the industry remember it as a painful time of dramatic change that didn’t necessarily benefit telecom. The Internet wave hit our shores like a tsunami, doing incredible damage and leaving few survivors. Metcalfe’s Law had predicted that when the number of network users hit a certain threshold, that everyone would want to be on that network, and for the Internet, that happened in 1995. Neither telecom, nor the rest of the world, has been the same since.

In case your memory is a bit fuzzy, let me take you back through those fateful days. Yeah, we’d heard the buzz. Some of us had been involved with the Internet since its very beginning. We’d even recently done deals with companies like Netscape and Spyglass to make sure we were well positioned to participate in this latest thing. But we seemed to overlook the fact that our networks needed to be ready for tremendous traffic growth.

First, our voice switches got hammered with new traffic patterns, as people started dialing up to the net and staying connected for what seemed like hours. Then, when customers started asking for broadband connections, we couldn’t understand why ISDN wasn’t what they wanted. Instead, we let start-up broadband providers like Covad and Rhythms NetConnections and Northpoint create the broadband Internet market with pricing structures that we’re still living with today. We let companies like Google and IBM become perceived as the trusted partners to help consumers and businesses respectively to navigate through the new landscape of Internet power and danger.

Bottom line, we missed the opportunity to be early leaders in helping our customers to benefit from the Internet, and therefore we incurred significant costs without gaining significant value.

Well, guess what, it’s about to happen all over again. Just like Metcalfe, the Law of Mobility (www.law-of-mobility.com) predicts that the Mobility Age is about to come crashing down on our shores.

Are we in telecom prepared to play a leadership role as convergence continues and as mobility gets built into every business process, or are we going to repeat the denial and resistance that cost us so badly a decade ago?

I honestly believe that we have the opportunity to lead this new revolution if we just don’t mess it up.

What will it look like if we fail? Hopefully this won’t happen, but if we in telecom act like we’ve often acted (or rather not acted), then I’m guessing mobility services will be defined by new broadband networks built by non-telecom players, maybe initially metro WiFi, but probably advancing to next generation technologies. Chances are that non-traditional competitors like cable companies, Google, and Microsoft will increasingly define and capture industry value. Our customers will increasingly perceive us as obstructionist dinosaurs and their loyalty will further decay. Not a pretty picture to say the least.

But, if we succeed, we’ll enjoy a resurgence like telecom has never seen. Our capabilities will an integral part of our customers’ lives and businesses, making us an indispensable part of their homes and work. Our partnerships with content, application, and product companies will create a win-win-win between ourselves, our partners, and the end customers with everyone benefiting from the value unleashed through mobility. Our employees will celebrate the opportunity to participate in innovation instead of trying to squelch it, encouraging them to stay rather than jumping ship to join the entrepreneurial startups that undoubtedly will emerge. Telecom life will be good. Very good.

But carriers like Sprint won’t be able to make this future hope a reality by ourselves. We will need the help and support of all of our partners – our technology vendors, our partners in adjacent industries, and our customers.

From our technology and intellectual property partners, we need business structures that support the continuing convergence of devices, networks, and processes. We must plan for the growth that will come through more open approaches rather than forcing our customers to abandon us for less constrained mobility options.

Carriers, like Sprint, need to understand our strengths and seek out partners in adjacent spaces with complementary strengths. Carriers aren’t content companies, but we have capabilities that are very complementary to the media industry. We aren’t the best at making consumer products, but as consumer products are increasingly converged into the mobile device, our position should be highly valuable to consumer brands. We must all work together to identify the partnership models that leverage our strengths in the ways that create the most value for all of us, and most importantly for our joint customers.

Speaking of customers, we carriers must build strong, mutually respectful partnerships with our best customers. We must be open to listen to what consumers and businesses tell us they want and need, and we must be willing to share with them as we learn how to deliver on those desires. The relationships we build must be the type that jointly celebrate progress and demonstrate patience and trust as we all learn what mobility really means. I know that carriers traditionally haven’t been known for these types of relationships, but clearly, at least at Sprint, becoming this kind of partner has been our focus for the past several years.

I really believe that we are on the verge of another dramatic technology shift that will redefine how businesses operate and will even dramatically impact society as a whole. Power will be unleashed and our customers will hunger for that power. Value will be created as companies become trusted partners to our customers in capturing that power. Will those of us in telecom be the ones benefiting from that value creation? Or will we once again be on the outside looking in?

Russ McGuire is a Chief Strategist for Sprint.

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