Long gone the days of 2G when carriers controlled how the money flowed in their networks. Everything was limited by voice and SMS, the ecosystem was closed for third-parties and all services brought money in operator’s pockets. 3G was a game changer. In order to bring high speed internet connection to their subscribers and make cash off of data plans, carriers built new networks from scratch and licensed entirely new frequencies. Only to completely ruin their business model.

With a full access to the Internet, subscribers now can get all services for free, even the main ones, like voice communication and messaging. Apple and Google are using carriers as a pipe to deliver their own content to their own smartphones for free. It’s free for them to deliver but it’s not free for subscribers, of course. It’s just they don’t pay to carriers, they pay to Apple and Google. So everybody in this scheme receives something except carriers.

Not only services, but phones itself are selling through carriers. And here Apple once again puts pressure on carriers as they are selling iPhones at highly discounted prices.With such a high demand for iPhone and other modern smartphones, carriers can’t ignore them and they are forced to offer these devices. In an interview with CNNMoney Sprint CEO Hesse said that the main reason why customers had left Sprint prior to October 2011 was because it had no iPhone. And this is true of all major carriers around the world. They are forced to pay huge subsidy up front to buy iPhones, because Apple is a global brand that has astounding influence in the industry. Already mentioned Sprint committed paying to Sprint about $15.5 billion up front over the next four years. This deal won’t give any profit to the carrier until 2015.

This is indeed very tight situation for mobile operators. They need somehow to monetize 3G services or the whole industry will be controlled by two, arguably three players, with Microsoft rolling out their Windows Phone OS on a lot of mobile devices. Like Google and Apple it also has its own market of applications. Microsoft really wants to make its OS as widespread as possible by making WP OS based headsets affordable. Nokia Lumia 710 priced at $300 unlocked and $50 with contract is one of the cheapest handsets. Nokia is expected to roll out Lumia 610 which is even cheaper and this is another disaster for carriers as consumers will be able to buy fully functional smartphones at a price of basic mobile phones.

We will continue to observe this situation and offer different ways for carriers to get out of it. Stay tuned.