Whoop-de-doo. Facebook has 45 million people registered on its Web site. I'm one of them. Not only do I not pay a dime for the service, I don't really even get what the "service" is. I registered because I can't criticize something I haven't at least taken the time to look at. Besides, I didn't want one more person assuming I am stuck in old-world telecom.

By the way, I looked for all my friends on Facebook. Nobody there. I looked for co-workers and colleagues and could find none except for the king of all social networkers -- Jeff Pulver.

So if I am old-world telecom, I am not alone.

But I don't really want to criticize Facebook. It may grow up to be a real fine something one day. I heard ad revenue potential is tremendous. I was amazed when the market valued the company-that-might at $15 billion based in part on Microsoft out-maneuvering Google for a 1.6%, $240 million stake in what is being billed as the Second Coming.

Funny, I thought we stopped valuating companies on potential back in 2001. Alas, all those big money matters are beyond me. I know people learn from their mistakes, so if investors say MySpace, I mean LinkDN, I mean Facebook is worth a fortune, who am I to argue?

Besides, that's not what got my goat today. What got my goat was Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz addressing the wireless industry at the CTIA event this week and telling operators where to get off (see the story below). These are the same operators that serve the other 256 million people in the U.S., with a service that not only do I understand, but that generates an average revenue per user of $42 per month.

Internet companies are starting to bore me -- Google being the exception. Google has value in more than just a financial sense. And it has the brass and the cash to entertain going out and getting access of its own in the form of wireless spectrum and perhaps building its own fiber infrastructure someday. Maybe Google is just blowing smoke, but at least they see the value of the network.

But Facebook? When Moskovitz is back in school finishing the second half of his Harvard education and telling stories about his time as a paper billionaire and how he rubbed shoulders with Brin and Page, what will he think of the network operators then?

With his 15 minutes, Moskovitz is trying to redefine the wireless industry, much like Vonage thought it would redefine the wireline industry. He said wireless operators should open their networks to any and all comers and seek service revenues only in areas where they offer true added value.

What? A high-quality distribution system that delivers a service to and from almost anywhere in the country in milliseconds is not a value add? If he or any other Internet company were selling anything tangible, could they get it to you without paying delivery charges? Would UPS or FedEx carry their packages for free? Would they not X-ray them to see what's inside. Like the operator wants to know what kind of code is in its network?

And in a real knee-slapper, Moskovitz pointed to Apple and Microsoft as icons of open computing platforms. Excuse me? Maybe Microsoft's multimillion-dollar investment has Facebook singing a different tune than every other Internet company out there that loathes Microsoft for its proprietary platform. For better or worse, Microsoft doesn't let just any application run on its platforms. There are controls in place.

Moskovitz says wireless operators' closed systems are not good for his game plan. He thinks requiring the authorization of applications installed on devices and subsequently running on an operator's network is unreasonable. I supposed he would let me run my own video and music-sharing platform from my Facebook account.

Moskovitz' partner Mark Zuckerberg has denied that he plans to take Facebook public, saying that the company is focused on improving its services, rather than growing revenues, for the time being. That's code for "I know this company is over-valued and I don't want to get embarrassed at my IPO."

Facebook has not yet earned the right to tell the $134 billion wireless industry what it should do.

E-mail me at tmcelligott@telephonyonline.com.