Hey y’all, I’m back. So anyway. We all know that wireless is dragging on wireline revenue, but Anton Wahlman and Eric Kainer over at ThinkPanmure believe that the Medusa-like head of Skype might be another, maybe bigger threat to incumbents. In fact, they think that as we speak — err, type — a global consortium of incumbents is conspiring to launch a Skype competitor. It will be a Perseus to fight competition, I suppose.

Wow, really? It’s all very secret society. That said, before we discount that such an Illuminati-like group exists, consider that ThinkPanmure tends to get some pretty juicy information (like the rumor that AT&T Inc. has signed a deal with ip.access for millions of femtocells. Hot gossip!). So, let’s look further:

“We believe that AT&T, in conjunction with perhaps 10 to 15 other incumbent operators such as British Telecom, Deutsche Telekom and NTT, is preparing to launch, in 2009, a competitor of sorts to Skype,” the dynamic duo write. “We believe that the motivation to do this would be to keep subscribers from completely disappearing, reducing win-back marketing costs.”

Hmm, well, yes, there’s a point there. If you can’t beat them, join them?

They go on to note that incumbents are supplanting the lost wireless revenue with other services, but: “The loss of the long-time telephone number often means that the incumbent phone operator loses the relationship with the customer entirely. Why? Because the consumer can buy access for his VoIP service such as Skype from another source, such as a cable modem, 3G cellular, WiMAX, or a competitive DSL/fiber carrier. If this happens, the cost to win back this subscriber can be disproportionately high, if it does ever occur.”

Ohhhhhhhh. I get it now: this is coming from dumb pipe fears, plus the inability to leverage the customer relationship to sell in other services.

They go on to elaborate on how it would work: “The service would be free when calling any other subscriber of the consortium, consisting of perhaps 10 to 15 incumbent carriers around the world. We believe the likely hook for the consumer would be that you have to buy your access service, such as DSL, fiber or, for that matter, 3G, from the incumbent. That way, the incumbent, while losing some telephone revenue, can use the power of the DSL line to upgrade the customer to IPTV or to add one or more cellular subscriptions down the road.”

I’m sure they know something (many things — who is their Deep Throat??) that TaraBytes is not knowing of. But my initial analysis of this yields two questions. First of all, considering that the open access drumbeat is getting louder and louder (with AT&T and Verizon Communications Inc. both on board), and with WiMAX on the way thanks to the Sprint spinoff of Xohm, we’re transitioning to a third-party application plus non-carrier-locked consumer electronics model anyway. Might take a while, but we’ll get there. So the value proposition for the carrier will lie in leveraging the information it holds in its network — what was accessed when and where and by whom and where did they go from there? — in order to enable other people’s applications to be more effective. It will lie in providing targeted advertising based on that same network information, creating new revenue from that. It will lie in providing reliability and call quality in the transport layer. And also the differentiation lies in enabling fixed-mobile convergence and the ability to tie services to a person, not a device — porting apps and content around to several different screens (and hey, isn’t that an AT&T thing?). Skype can’t do that without the cooperation of the carrier. So ... in that scenario, launching one’s own free talk service seems like a nice thing to do, but not a necessary one.

The second question I have is, an incumbent version of Skype wouldn’t be a BYO access offering, obviously, would it? Does that mean the call quality would be better? Or could be better? Just akin to digital voice from Comcast? In that scenario, the free calling to other countries thing is niiiiice — all the cheap, none of the echoes. And wouldn’t that cannibalize, become the death wish of, what landline voice they have left (not to mention eroding wireless service revenue too). In other words, why would they want to develop a talk-for-free app if revenue is already suffering? Maybe I have that figured wrong, or maybe I’m just a Chicken Little type, but it seems risky.

What do you think? And do you have any information about this (or any other juicy topics? Come, on, throw me a bone)? If so, e-mail me at tseals@vpico.com.

Yes, folks, I’m back after a week’s hiatus. You know you missed me.

So we’re all familiar with the hype curve and the trail of lifeless bodies it’s left in its wake over the years, yes? Think muni wireless, MVNOs, hosted VoIP, betamax, the Atkins diet …

Well, femtocells might just be the next casualty of hype’s dreaded glance. These small personal base stations sit within the home and use existing broadband connections to backhaul wireless voice with some kind of a VoIP special sauce. To be very technical about it. Well, I suppose I could go into UMA and exactly how it all happens, but that’s not really what’s important, now, is it? No. What matters is that the carrier gets increased indoor wireless quality and a way to take on the wireline competitor in the battle for the building. It’s analogous to dual-mode Wi-Fi/cellular approaches, only a whole lot easier to deploy.

So far, so good, and I for one have been thinking that given increasing cellco backhaul issues, femtocells could really take off in a big way …well, after more than two vendors start offering them and they get cheaper and consumer education ramps up (paging Sprint) and on and on. Judging by what’s been flooding my inbox though, I’m starting to get nervous, because that THING is starting to happen. You know what I’m talking about…that at first subtle refrain reverberating through the industry “femto femto femto,” to be followed by a deluge of breathless endorsements of how femto technology is the Second Coming of Alexander Graham Bell. To be followed a bit later by collective disappointment and the leaving of the technology behind by all but the diehards, who will then spend the next 18 months convincing everyone that femtos do, really, make sense. And finally, if the industry’s lucky, the technology will start to be deployed and we’ll be back to where we would have been two years earlier if the hype-sters had just left well enough alone.

Back to my concerns. Femtos are great, really they are, but let’s take this slowly, can we? We want this to work, of course. But here’s an example from a typical femto-related pitch I’ve been getting:

“There are only two companies with CDMA femtocells currently available, and one of them, AirWalk Communications, will debut a significant new access product at CTIA. They’ll also be talking about their customers, their strategy, and the trends they see in this young but rapidly advancing market.”

Rapidly advancing market? Didn’t you just say there are only two companies with CDMA femtocells? That’s more like a trickle. And besides, with CDMA regulated mostly to our dear United States, that doesn’t do much for Moore’s Law, does it? Yes, TaraBytes is in a cynical mood, I’ll admit.

All of that said, operators could be the key to staving off the overhype by actually deploying it. Dan Hesse is keynoting CTIA, too, and let’s face it, what else is he going to talk about? Sure, he could tackle WiMAX — again — but Sprint usually trots out Barry West for that. So maybe he’ll chat about femtocells. In light of recent events I’m pretty sure Sprint’s shocking profit losses, increasing subscriber churn and lack of competitive devices aren’t on the docket, so …

Bottom line? Run, femtocells, run. Hype is coming for you.

P.S.: Fittingly, the first intelligible phone call was placed — “Come here, Watson, I want you” — this week in history back in 1876. Happy birthday, communications industry. Thanks for the gainful employment.

I’m heading out to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress this weekend, and after a Sunday evening cooking class with Harris Stratex Networks (now THERE’s a good idea), TaraBytes will be hitting the ground running. And the show looks to be a deliciously chock-full of goodness as those tapas I’ll be making.

Already the advance buzz is tantalizing. High profile appearances from everyone from Robert Redford to John Chambers sets the editorial tone for the show. And then there’s the product news that’s sure to spark the imagination. For one, it looks like we’ll see a prototype mobile phone based on Google's Android platform at the show from Purple Labs, a mobile Linux solution company. It has teamed up with Philips spin-off NXP Semiconductors to introduce a sub-$100 3G smart phone. Yummy.

And Motorola Inc., despite the rumors it may spin off its devices division, will be out in force on the handset side, showcasing prototypes, WiMAX devices and more.

Meanwhile, Yahoo! sent a cryptic last-minute press outreach missive today scheduling a press conference. I wonder if they’ll have some news for us on the Microsoft front. Microsoft is having its own press conference at the show too. Actually, a lot of big wigs are having press conferences, sure to provide plenty of food for thought.

Speaking of food, there’s the food to consider too — the real food. Barcelona is a culinary wonderland, but the locals eat dinner at 10 pm at night. Before that you can grab a bite of tapas — if you’re lucky enough to snag a seat in one of the busy tapas bars, that is. Otherwise your Catalonian better be pretty good lest you end up ordering something of the sweet meats variety. The press room featured a lovely spread of cookies. So suffice it to say, I spent most of last year’s conference starving and a bit light headed. And after walking and walking and walking — miles on the rail, as they say —it wasn’t a pretty sight. So this year I’m pleased to note the plethora of press luncheons, dinners and cocktail plus tapas receptions at the show, guaranteed to keep my energy up, and that of the other beleaguered and dedicated press corp denizens.

Thanks to whoever decided to let the food flow.