Forget 4G or even 3G, ABI Research is predicting that an evolved version of 2G EDGE networks could be big if it fulfills its potential – but that is a big if. ABI said today in a research note that the “Evolved” enhancement of today’s widespread EDGE mobile networks (E-EDGE) could generate nearly $3.7 billion in capex for cellular base station upgrades in 2015, but that depends on operators and handset makers adopting the technology. more

Call it wishful thinking, but we’d love to see some new – and promised – services in 2010; and not just from Google either:

•  Completely cloud-based media: photos, music, books, etc.
•  Augmented reality for mobile goes mainstream
•  Social search. We want our search engines to anticipate our every move and respond accordingly.

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Smartphone application analytics start-ups Flurry and Pinch Media announced today they will merge their businesses, making them the analytics authority for the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android devices. Combined, the two companies will cover more than 80% of all iPhones (or four out of every five on the market), iPod Touch and Android devices (or two out of three) worldwide. more

Not every trend starts in the developed markets and trickles down to emerging markets; some trickle up:

•  Mobile money matters.
•  Customers will pay rationally for mobile service – prepaid, tiered pricing, etc – if you ask them. But if you just offer them the world (unlimited usage) it’s hard to take it back from them.

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With millions of mobile apps on the market, there were bound to be some strange ones:

•  Baby Shaker. And by bizarre, we mean offensive, inexcusable and how did this ever make it on through the iPhone App Store approval process?
•  The upskirt iPhone app?

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Throughout 2009, consumers were talking (or Tweeting) the most about:

•  Location-based mobile services/apps
•  Facebook tops 300 million users, even Friendster comes back from the dead – social network still a fad?

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In 2009, these trends stole all the headlines:

•  Cloud and virtualization coming to operator networks – stage 2.1 of the IP revolution
•  DPI and policy intelligence added to the network – stage 2.2 of the IP revolution
•  LTE emerging rapidly, along with converged packet core – stage 2.3 of the IP revolution

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Operation Chokehold is set to go down within the hour, but it remains to be seen what affect it will have on AT&T’s (NYSE:T) network – if any. Born from a satirical blog post by the “fake Steve Jobs” that was spurred by comments AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vegas made to analysts, the protest has taken on a life of its own. more

Revenue was harder to come by in 2009, but these business models put a new spin on making money:

•  Charging competitors for preferred access to the network – CDNs, wholesaling of network APIs, quality of service guarantees for over-the-top players
•  Whoever successfully moves Google’s Ad Words ad engine (Google itself; someone new) into the world of mobile advertising
•  Taking advantage of billions of M2M devices plus the possibility of driving mobile penetration among consumers from 80% to 400% (every customer has multiple wireless devices)

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In 2009, everyone but the companies in question (okay, mainly Google and Apple) were talking about:

•  Google buys Sprint.
•  Cisco and/or Google acquiring everybody – both are back on acquisition trail, they say

More after the break, including our readers’ responses… more