A study released this week by Insight Research points to a new and disturbing trend for carriers: Even as service provider subscribership is increasing, revenue growth isn't keeping pace. That may not be particularly surprising given the access line drain and plummeting long-distance rates, but it's certainly bad news for carriers sinking big sums of money into new technology for the sake of enabling new services and--presumably--driving revenue.

The problem, however, may not be entirely related to consumers' willingness to pay and the falling costs of services. It may have far more to do with service providers' ability to market service enhancements and ancillary applications that can boost ARPU, improve ROI and do other things involving wacky acronyms.

For all the talk about mobile multimedia content in the form of games, music, movies and so on, most people are still using their cell phones for voice. Voice is the "v" in VoIP--another service sector where there is tremendous potential to go far beyond voice. As Insight's Robert Rosenberg put it, "It's about who owns the customer to be able to provide new classes of services that you and I are not thinking about right now."

The service provider community talks a lot about new service introduction, but it's no longer a singular notion. Carriers need to be always thinking expansively about what the positive, revenue-generating side effects are of any technology tool they may employ.

E-mail me at jmeyers@primediabusiness.com.