When 'Joliet' Jake Blues (John Belushi) leaned over towards the nervous, preppy, wealthy diners at the upscale Chez Paul restaurant and asked them "How much for the little girl? How much for the women?" - they (and a part of us) were appalled. 
When Hutchinson 3G and T-Mobile, as well as Orange and Vodafone, announced they were going to share their 3G networks, a lot of equipment vendors, and analysts were similarly startled.
A small part of the telecom community was not surprised, as there are a lot of benefits to sharing infrastructure and the data it generates.
However, many providers have not been good at developing successful business models built around sharing. The failure of so many US based MVNOs compared with similar efforts in Europe, and the issues in merging the different technologies involved in the Sprint PCS and Nextel merger, caution us.
In the IP world the spectacular growth of Web 2.0 applications, social networks, and mashups have shown that sharing is a model worth pursuing, and the more enlightened service providers recognize this.
The network is a rich source of data, that has value if shared. The presence information from your mobile could be shared with your significant other's IM client or made visible on your Facebook status. Tim O'Reilly recently mused in a New York Times Op-ed contribution "... what if this phone company opened up its databases to developers of software applications? We could soon see mash-ups of your call history with the address books from your personal computer, your telephone and your social network. Now imagine a user community turned loose to annotate that data."
Knowing who their subscribers are, what they like to do, where they physically are, and sharing that information responsibly, in real-time, to add value, is what TeleSciences' Business Integration Appliance Services enables - it's not the same as selling your children.
For a beautiful visualization of shared network data, take a look at how New York city breathes with voice and IP at the New York Talk Exchange exhibition at MOMA, designed by the SENSEable City Laboratory folks from MIT.
Two major strands of news emerged from the world's largest mobile show this week in Barcelona; mobile advertising and hybrid handsets.
Communication service providers are thrilled. With revenues for voice in decline, they're welcoming the chance to claw back some revenue through advertising. Of course they may have to offer incentives to encourage their subscribers to tolerate pesky adverts on their handhelds - maybe free voice calls, or sending international SMS at a reasonable price?
It's evident that if you are building the latest, greatest handset (Sony Ericsson X1, Nokia 96) to compete with that upstart Apple iPhone, then as well as slick software you've realised that providing WiFi is a must. Afterall, browsing the internet even at HSUPA or EVDO rates (let alone EDGE) is not the same as the real thing - the speed of the WiFi connection that you have at home. So any handset worth it's salt must include WiFi.
 Why should an advert be sent over the carriers network, what if it gets to the handset via WiFi? Consumers are used to being faced with display pages (and ads) just before, and after they login to hotspots. No need to offer any incentive, Pavlov's canine has already been trained.
Ah, you say, but subscribers won't have the patience to enter usernames and passwords everytime they pass Starbucks or MacDonalds - but with services like those from DeviceScape they won't have to. They'll have already entered all their subscriptions and passwords into a website from the comfort of their home, so that when they're out and about they'll be effortlessly connected to any WiFi that will let them.
WiFi's limited range makes it ideal for Location Based Advertising, and the faster connection speed allows for more stimulating music and videos to be used in the adverts.
What does this mean for the mobile carriers? Are they going to wake up to the fact that there is more than one way to get an advert on that handset? And whose customer is it, Apple's, Nokia's, Starbuck's, Wallmart's or theirs? Wherever there is a friendly WiFi network, there's a chance that the advert being served won't be coming from the carrier.
Now, mobile providers still know a lot about their subscriber, a lot more than the browser cookie on a handset can tell the WiFi advertiser, but unless they start to do something useful with all that information, they may have to wave goodbye to an income stream they wish they already had.
Tapping into the mine of knowledge that the provider has about their customers and how, where, when and why they use the network, is one reason that mobile carriers are turning to TeleSciences to analyze, and in real-time provide relevant information for the display of the 'best' advert to their customer.
Not before time, mobile service providers outside Asia are beginning to wake up to the fact that providing coverage inside, as well as outside a building is important.
 What do femtocells, or picocells mean to you? Is your mobile provider taking them seriously?
Natives of Hong Kong and Seoul, are always surprised when visting their friends in London, Paris or New York how residents of these major cities consider it inevitable that they will loose their mobile signal when they go underground or even drive through a tunnel. It doesn't have to be that way. There's no technical reason not to have repeaters or local, mini cell towers, and if they are really small they're called pico or femto.
Vodafone Group plc, Telefónica O2 Europe plc, and TeliaSonera AB all made announcements of trials this week at the show in Barcelona. Cisco just took an equity position in ip.access. It's beginning to happen for the rest of us.
When the network is accessible anywhere how will service providers differentiate themselves? Back when AT&T Mobility called itself Cingular, it claimed (for a while) that it had the fewest dropped calls. Verizon Wireless claims to have "America's Most Reliable Wireless Network". What happens when the network always works, even on the train to work in the morning?
How will subscribers use the network? For shopping, talking, navigating, watching TV, listening to sports?
How should providers charge for services that benefit from these always on connections?
TeleSciences has solutions to help providers make decisions in real-time. To make sense of all the information that comes from their networks. These systems will help them to deliver better services, faster, rather than just worry about dropping calls.
Just think, soon you'll be able to use your mobile in your own house without having to stick your head out the window. Radical.
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