The youth market has always been a wireless service provider's best friend. Not only have the world's youth been quick to adopt mobile technology in the first place, but they have been a driving force behind much of the innovation and, consequently, much of the additional revenue that wireless service providers crave.

As a Forrester Research study recently pointed out, younger consumers — those under 25 — are also household leaders in technology usage. In its annual study of U.S. households, Forrester found that, for example, young people not only were the first to transfer their long-distance minutes to a wireless phone but also then set the tone for other users within the household to do the same.

For all of its attractiveness as a segment, however, the youth market is not predictable. Five years ago, no one was saying that kids who will download music illegally rather than fork over 99¢ per song would willingly pay $2.50 to download a snippet of the exact same song onto a cell phone, creating a multi-billion industry in the process.

As veteran wireless users move off campus and into the work force, the ability to predict their behavior becomes more important, particularly as wireless service providers try to move up the value chain with enterprise customers. Hearing the Crazy Frog ringtone on your phone is fine for a distraction, but genuine heavy lifting for wireless players will be determining what business and productivity demands younger workers will have and how to best blend their needs with those of the corporate workplace to create wireless packages that make sense for all concerned.

According to a separate Forrester study, businesses are adopting mobile applications about 18% faster than expected. More than half of the 1000 businesses it surveyed have used mobile data for e-mail, calendar and intranet applications.

In the enterprise world, as in the residential household, younger consumers are likely to not only be a driving force for mobile usage but also be the catalyst for older workers to shift from their current means of doing business to new approaches that encompass mobility and wireless communications.

For employers, the payoff is significant — workers can be more productive by working more efficiently and making better use of travel time and even off-hours to get critical business done. Smaller companies can use voice-over-IP and wireless technology to maintain what appears to their customers to be a constant presence by directing calls automatically to where company resources are available.

As their best customers grow up, in fact, wireless service providers may find themselves called on to provide a means to avoid the constancy of communications that today's youth embrace. Now there's a revenue opportunity that could one day dwarf even ringtones.