Observers of the wireless business generally agree that even as mobile services become more popular and varied, the sector itself is essentially getting smaller. That's only true if you consider the massive consolidation of already massive wireless service providers (Cingular/AT&T Wireless and Sprint/Nextel, for example) to represent shrinkage. Ostensibly, fewer wireless network operators means technology developers that cater to wireless carriers have fewer targets. But that thinking is short-sighted because it ignores a potentially enormous emerging mobile market that wireless technology developers have barely even begun to address: the mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, market, which is the subject of this issue's cover story on page 24.

The MVNO phenomenon means that ultimately there will be dozens or hundreds or thousands of companies offering their own brands of wireless services in what is essentially a souped-up version of wireless resale — souped up because those new providers will be able to tailor mobile content to the niches they are addressing, whatever those niches might be (and they are innumerable). That alone means that content developers — those software companies, large and small, that create targeted applications of all sorts for use on wireless devices — have a huge opportunity for increased sales and distribution of their creations.

But that's not all. MVNOs, especially the largest ones, will all require different types of business support systems. They won't own or operate networks, so they won't need network management or other operations systems, but they will need front-end billing and customer service platforms to support the potentially millions of customers they might attract (see Virgin Mobile's success for proof of those numbers). That's another whole category of technology development that can benefit from the MVNO boom.

And somewhat ironically, given the aforementioned consolidation trend, the companies that will benefit the most from the MVNO explosion are the wireless carriers that hold the assets MVNOs require most: networks. Sprint's success in the MVNO realm already has proved that there is big business to be found in wireless wholesale, and certainly other wireless carriers are not far behind. I wouldn't be surprised if the surge in MVNO providers frees them up somewhat from the mass consumer market to concentrate on the potentially more lucrative enterprise customer sector.

The consolidation of the largest wireless network operators does not represent an industry contraction. On the contrary, it is just the most recent stage in the evolution of a wireless industry that will only continue to grow and prosper.