Will Vonage's wireless services strategy succeed?

Vonage is planning to offer wireless services in second quarter of 2007. Since Vonage has been facing stiff competition from cable companies in VOIP space, it is looking to diversify its service offerings, and provide a bundle of services, and essentially become an MVNO that provides mobile services along with VOIP. We all know successful MVNOs including Virgin Mobile, that just play in mobile space.

MVNOs are about brand, and a segment of the user base to which carrier does not want to market or support. Virgin Mobile plays to the young audience and offers phones targeted to that segment of the market. Vonage is going to offer services to general consumers and small businesses, and that is very price sensitive market. Vonage will compete with the likes of Comcast, that provides all the services what Vonage is thinking of providing. If Vonage can not add any other differentiators to its service, it will have hard time selling its service.

Other than bundling its VOIP software on mobile phones, Vonage will have to provide other mobile device management functions and mobile applications that make the user's life easier. I would love to see applications like easy location based content share.

Are device makers gearing to compete with carriers?

Ed Sim of BeyondVC has an interesting observation about Nokia's free mapping program, that Nokia is gearing up to compete with its most valuable channel - carriers. Nokia could not just be doing this because carriers are going to Taiwan to get private-labeled phones, and thus put pressure on Nokia's device margins. There is something larger at play here. Certainly carriers have a lot of muscle, and they control the wide area wireless networks. However, municipal WiFi and mesh networks (even though very small and spotty for the moment) are disruptive technologies for Internet access and voice (VOIP) and these technologies could cause problems for carriers in the future. Subscribers will be able to buy devices like Skype phone and connect to these networks for voice and data. Carriers will have less influence on the subscribers, but device makers will still be in the business of making devices for access. Device makers will certainly be able to offer direct services through their portals, other than vocie and data. Even though there are still issues about business models around free networks, but they are still very disruptive technologies. These technologies can turn carriers into just data pipes.
Nokia's acquisitions of Intellisync, Loudeye and now free mapping program are preparations for that coming world.
Is that what Nokia and other device makers are preparing for?