Certainly no calendar flip would be complete without a laundry list of predictions for the new year. FierceWireless has put together a compelling predictions for the wireless industry. To summarize:

• Net neutrality will pass, but with exceptions for wireless
• Palm will be purchased by another handset vendor
• Pricing, coverage issues will hinder cable companies’ wireless offerings
• Sprint Nextel’s 4G leadership will help revive the carrier
• Huawei will get one LTE deal in North America
• At least one wireless carrier will experiment with usage-based data pricing
• Motorola will show some signs of recovery thanks to Android (last year, FierceWireless predicted “Motorola’s handset division will cease to be“)
• Computer makers’ attempts at Android smartphones will flounder

Read the full FierceWireless report here.

 

Meanwhile, Juniper Research has drawn up a list of predictions for the coming year, all neatly wrapped up as the top ten predictions for the mobile and wireless industry for 2010. Summarized as follows:

 

• Mobile Data Traffic Explosion to strain 3G Networks, spur data pricing overhaul
• Mobile Ecosystem starts to go green
• Mobile Heads for the Cloud
• New Category of Merging Smartphone Functionality and Netbooks to Emerge
• Apps Stores All Round
• Mobile Social Networking to Integrate with other Applications including M-Commerce
• NFC phones appear in the shops
• At least 10 LTE networks to be launched into service
• Smartphones to Get Augmented Reality Makeover
•  Christmas Kindle sales expected to herald the rise of the connected embedded consumer devices

The first prediction is one I’m hearing a lot about from our infrastructure clients. As Juniper says, although 3G is less than ten years old, 2010 could be the year when 3G networks begin to fall over under the burden of mobile data, due largely to some 33.8m iPhones that have been sold since launch.

 

Then there’s Dean Bubley‘s predictions from his Disruptive Wireless blog. Dean lists “heroes, zeroes, and no-surprises” as follows:

 

Heros

• HSPA+
• Apple iPhone
• Android
• Augmented reality
• Facebook
• Consumer femtocells
• Huawei
• “Comes with data”
• Connection-sharing
• Operator-on-operator applications

Zeros

• Mobile IMS and RCS
• LTE
• Virtual conferences
• NFC
• Twitter
• Enterprise femtocells
• Embedded 3G netbooks
• Smartphone profit margins
• Operator AppStores
• Aggregated social networks
• The terms “dumb pipe” and “over the top”

No surprises

• WiMAX
• Open network APIs
• WiFi
• Nokia
• BlackBerry
• Consolidation
• Mobile TV (“Was dead, is dead, will stay dead.”)
• Data roaming prices

And finally, WirelessWeek compiled its list by soliciting input from “industry leaders” on the following topics for 2010:

• Prepaid & data
• Net neutrality & mobile web
• Emphasis on competition, emerging devices
• Race to converged connectivity
• Wireless in the enterprise
• Content & apps purchasing on rise
• Video optimization as prevalent as web optimization
• Synthesis for M2M services
• Mobile money expansion
• Smartphones for more people
• M2M is major growth area
• Large brands recognize value of mobile applications
• Mobile backhaul providers embrace COE to meet needs

Lots of predictions in a volatile industry. I came away from the holidays with one prevailing observation – as we turn the decade clock to 2010, one thing is far different than ten years ago. My extended family had a lovely time together as always, but everyone sure spent a lot of time on their various mobile devices. At one point, I looked around the table at more than a dozen siblings, children, neices & nephews and saw why the room was so quiet – everyone had a mobile device in their hands.

My prediction: This mobile thing is going to be big.

Internet Evolution site editor Nicole Ferraro shares a compelling story from the floor of the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

Nicole reports that Morgan Stanley‘s managing director, Mary Meeker says that over the next few years the mobile Web will be “bigger than most people think.” In fact, she’s calling it “the next major computing cycle,” and says mobile-related technology shifts will change all the dynamics between incumbents and attackers, and will create a wide range of winners and losers.

Meeker presented 68 slides, starting with an economy update / dashboard. Included were positive leading indicators like rebounding global stock markets, narrowing credit spreads, reduced market volatility, and rising earnings estimates.

The technology sector (as has been previously noted in this blog), Meeker says, is leading the charge back to financial health as the largest sector measured by S&P 500 market capitalization (19%). She also showed how global technology revenue estimates mimic the 2002 recovery that followed the tech nadir of 2001.

Now granted, when Meeker turns to domestic GDP and consumption, she is only able to call the trends “less bad,” and she does say that low capacity utilization in manufacturing, horribly low home sales, rising consumer credit and mortgage defaults, and high unemployment all imply economic weakness.

But unemployment peaks are typically key for economic turnarounds, Meeker says, and global GDP growth forecasts, led by China and India, are positive for 2010. Advertising spending, too, should grow in 2010, and consumer confidence seems to have bottomed out in February and has been heading up all year.

Then Meeker turned to the promise of the mobile Internet. And Meeker is bullish like crazy about mobile Internet! Driven, she says, by unprecedented next-generation-platform-induced changes in communication and commerce, mobile-related share shifts will “create/destroy material shareholder wealth.” YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are well noted. And not shockingly, the poster child for the uptake of mobile devices on IP-based networks is iPhone/iTouch usage (“fastest hardware user growth in consumer history” ).

The next big thing in computing follows a logical evolution, Meeker illustrates by slide 32. Increasing levels of integration will provide an incredible opportunity in semiconductors, hardware, software, and services as the rate of mobile Internet adoption makes desktop Internet adoption look so last-century. This statement I particularly loved: “Mobile devices will evolve as remote controls for ever expanding types of real-time cloud-based services…empowering consumers in unprecedented and transformative ways.”

Quoting from Mathew Honan in Wired magazine’s January issue, Meeker shares this: “Millions of people are now walking around with a gizmo in their pocket that not only knows where they are, but also plugs into the Internet.” Heavy mobile data users will triple to more than 1 billion by the end of 2013 (AT&T alone has had a 50x increase in mobile data traffic in the past 3 years).

These are exciting times for technology makers, marketers, and users. My passion for, and faith in technology has kept me bullish throughout the downturn, and I can hardly contain my enthusiasm for what’s coming as we turn this innovation economy skyward once again.

The full set of slides from Meeker’s presentation are available here, and are worth going through in their entirety.