Unlike the Internet, the mobile Internet grew up as a walled garden in the U.S. Some of the contributing factors were that the mobile Internet needed to be integrated into the entire mobile experience. The small screen required that the user interface be designed to allow the user to choose from a menu of simple, yet powerful, items, and a single platform was required to ensure multiple partners could interact with the end customer.

Carriers in the U.S. have been successful maintaining ownership of the customer and have created ecosystems that are one-stop shops. But, in the online space, customers have rapidly moved to players like Yahoo! and Google. Now these players have entered the mobile space and are on a collision course with the carriers' walled gardens.

With the entry of players like Google, the carrier dominance could be under threat. These players bring their online experience, technical prowess and powerful brand names to the mobile arena. A mobile search player would now provide an alternative “garden” that the customer could use. At stake are also some higher-margin revenue streams from content. In the case where the carriers partly lose the end customer relationship to a player like Google, revenue streams from content sale and advertisers would be threatened. As an example, a search provider and a handset manufacturer developing an integrated offer on handsets would allow users to access search in a very easy way.

Such an alliance could impact the parties in this space in different ways. For the end customers, this provides another option to access the same products. In addition, this allows them a consistent user experience across the online and mobile channels. For the search companies, this is a way to extend their dominance from the online world to the mobile Internet, putting them in a position of strength as that space develops. For the advertisers, this will be an opportunity to enter the mobile space with players they are used to working with.

The handset manufacturers get an opportunity to corner a position of greater importance in the ecosystem. Media companies can move closer to the customer and potentially get a larger share of the end customer revenue. For the carriers, it's a multi-dimensional implication, providing both an opportunity of greater traffic and a threat of average revenue per user decline.

There are several elements that both sides must consider: Strengthen the offering by providing valuable content and m-commerce opportunities. Leverage any content that you might own to differentiate. Improve the customer experience by making it easy to execute the transaction and keep the experience simple. Study the online experience to draw parallels. Deepen alliances with the content providers and media companies to ensure that the requisite content is available.

In addition, use analytics to understand end customer requirements and then develop products. Understand per subscriber economics and use them to strike a balance between selling the highest-value services. Translate learning from online behavior to the mobile world, and use this data to develop the right offers.

Finally, develop a complete ecosystem. Integrate with handsets to win customer mind share. Provide tools and platforms for developers that allow them to create innovative content offers. Provide the right tools for all the partners in the value chain. Find partners with similar alignments to develop a joint front to defend the walled garden.

As customers choose one garden over the other over the next several months, we will see all the players make moves along those dimensions.

Rahul Ratan, a telecom analyst, is a guest contributor to Telephony.