The carriers’ worst fears have transformed from spooky specters (it is Halloween this week) to reality, though a rather murky reality. Two companies that two years ago had no business in the handset industry are now everywhere you look. Ebay’s Skype just launched its own branded Skypephone over U.K. operator 3’s network. And according to the Wall Street Journal, Google is planning on creating what amounts to its own operating system as means to proliferate its software and services throughout the mobile world.

The rapture is upon us, right? Not so fast. I’m not quite ready to call this Armageddon yet. In fact, a few benefits to operators might be lurking behind these two items. Skype and Google aren’t likely to run away with the wireless network just because they have phones embedded with their software, and neither one is dumb enough to forget that it needs operator cooperation if it wants those services to work -- at least for now. Apple is partnering with operators for the iPhone -- though the deals it’s making clearly favor Apple -- as is Skype. It launched with 3 to get unfettered access to the global UMTS operator’s data network, which is almost a mandatory requirement to ensure the VoIP service will work. Google will have to do the same (unless it does become its own operator after the 700 MHz auction, in which case, good luck).

And despite the niftiness of the applications that Google and Skype produce, it’s not as if they’re new. Skype has been running on PDAs, smartphones and other devices for quite some time. And most of the features Google is reportedly hawking -- Gmail, Google Maps and YouTube -- have been readily available for more than a year as free downloads to any Java-enabled phone. Don’t believe me? Check it out. Gmail and Maps are wonderful little apps that work well over even an EDGE connection -- I use them all of time. Wonder why more people aren’t all over them? Probably because Google is distributing them independently of the operators. How do you like that, carriers? You crushed Google’s first foray into the mobile space without even trying.

On the other hand, where Google does have a distribution deal in place, its applications are all the rage. Look at Maps and YouTube on the iPhone. There’s clearly a demand for what Google can do, and I don’t think that repelling every one of the Internet search giant’s advances is ultimately in the best interests of the wireless industry. The same goes for Skype. To look at its VoIP calling service as simply cannibalizing an operator’s voice revenue is a very myopic outlook. Text messaging reduced the need to make every communication a voice call, and push-to-talk shifted many conversations off of the calling network. You don’t see voice operators complaining about those services. 3 may not sell any extra voice minutes because of Skype, but it will certainly sell a hell of a lot of data plans to Skype users. The more innovative services like Skype the operators allow on those data plans, the more plans they can sell and the more they charge for them.

Skype may have found a happy middle with the carriers, but Google is still further from reaching that compromise. It still projects the public posture of doing without the operators, and its plans -- as outlined by the Journal -- seem to back that up. Google isn’t talking about a loose collection of Java apps here. It wants to build an application framework that penetrates all the way down to the operating system where it will have access to the Telephony, GPS and network functions of the phone itself. And it wants to open the platform to a developer community. That kind of integrated set of service could prove very valuable to customers.

But operators have an easy way of fending off any attempt by Google to usurp control of the phone. They simply won’t sell them. The power of the operator in phone distribution reigns supreme in the U.S. Google realizes this, which is why the Journal has Google partnering with T-Mobile. But that carrier control won’t last forever if the operators remain so stubborn. There is already a small but growing direct sales movement in the U.S., driven by companies like Nokia frustrated with the lack of sales channels for its high-end Nseries phones. It’s only been spurred on by Apple freaks hacking the iPhone to work on any network. The more desirable handsets emerge and the more those handsets contain desirable services operators won’t support, the more consumers will educate themselves on means of bypassing their operators. And I’m sure Google will do everything in its power to help them.

So is there a compromise? Sure. Both Google and the operators have to get off their pedestals and admit they are being pig-headed. Neither the Internet advertising business model of Google, nor the charge-for-everything model of the operators works in the new world of the mobile Internet. It’s silly for every operator to have their own mapping and navigation service, their own video services, their own social networking portals—and to charge anywhere from $2 to $10 a month for them on top of data plan charges. At the same time, it’s rather ridiculous of Google to imply that the operators offer no value to their services beyond a dumb pipe to access them with. Operators not only bring the ultimate benefit of mobility, they can offer things services like SMS, GPS location, QoS controls and a wealth of customer data to the table, all of which could help Google make its services uniquely mobile and relevant.

At his keynote at CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment last week, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz told carriers they should only seek revenues for mobile data services to which they truly add value -- charging for everything that appears on the mobile phone because it’s on the mobile phone just won’t cut it. I think Moskovitz got it half right. Carriers can’t keep charging for sub-par versions of services available for free on the Web. They have to open up. At the same time, Google and the rest of the Internet heavyweights can’t just assume the operators are the network equivalent of a public beach. Google can offer its services for free, but some of that ad revenue has to make it back to the operators. Otherwise we’ll be stuck in the same stalemate.

E-mail me at kfitchard@telephonyonline.com.