For our staff, 2009 was the year of:

Introducing the brand Connected Planet: We came into existence, ending the hundred-year run of Telephony – because of course there’s much more to today’s networks than voice – and charting off to cover the same industry but new territories.

Happy New Year! Thank you for your continued readership. Here’s to a great and prosperous 2010.

Apple was a catalyst for a lot in 2009, but there are some trends the software giant can’t take credit for:

•  New “wholesale” markets like CDN and mobile backhaul emerging as hot growth areas
•  Network equipment vendors overnight turning into outsourced network operators
•  DPI and policy entering the network in a big way – adding intelligence to the network
•  Vertical solution areas – most notably smart grids – emerging as key driver of network growth
•  The acceleration of 4G

The great android v. Apple debate after the break… more

Justified or not, the bad economy was everyone’s favorite scapegoat in 2009:

•  The fact that service providers can’t out-innovate Web and media companies when it comes to content and applications.
•  That you didn’t make your sales quote or Wall Street guidance – and your competitor did (there are still good and bad employees and companies, even in a downturn)
•  Apple can sell smartphones despite the economy, yet no one else can sell them because of it

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

Sometimes competition can turn into all-out feud:

•  AT&T – Verizon “map” advertising wars. AT&T failed when it tried shut VZW down in court, and the commercials just keep getting juicer.
•  Verizon CEO to Hulu: “You’ll be dead in 2 years”

More after the break… more

If it’s booming on the Web now, service providers better take note:

•  Real-time everything – when Google added “real-time search” to its listings in December, the Web moved from static/archive to a living, breathing thing.
•  Online TV and video – with any business model and from any source.

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

In addition to our mobile phones, in 2009 we were addicted to:

•  Real mobile browsers – starting with iPhone but by year end available on most smartphones (though Blackberry and WinMo browsers still lag) – Editor in Chief Rich Karpinski
•  Google Goggles – Executive News Editor Ed Gubbins
•  Seafood Watch – Is the tuna that looks so good at the supermarket actually endangered? – Senior Editor Kevin Fitchard
•  Words with Friends on the iPhone 3G. It’s not groundbreaking; just free Scrabble on your phone. It has made an honest Scrabbler out of me. – Associate News Editor Sarah Reedy

More favorites from our smartphone holdouts after the break… more

In our humble opinion, these technologies got way too much attention in 2009:

•  Mobile TV
•  TV Everywhere
•  LTE – whether not it is important (it is) or arrives on schedule (it won’t)

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

In 2009, some companies adhered to the philosophy ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, leave the market’:

•  Joost, its CEO Mike Volpi forced out and investigated
•  Nortel, auctioned off in pieces. A giant of telecom tries to save itself one last time and then simply dissolves.
•  Verizon selling off rural lines to Frontier, exiting smaller markets to instantly boost its FiOS penetration levels

The biggest foot-in-mouth moments after the break… 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.

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

More after the break… more