over the past few days i had the opportunity to hear executives from at&t, verizon, sprint, t-mobile, virgin, helio and amp’d talk about their business and their thoughts about the future.

these guys just don’t get it.

they are still locked in the mindset of walled gardens. they talk about openness, but they think that “open” means letting users open a browser and download ringtones off-deck.

the reality is that carriers are holding back the mobile industry from realizing its potential. they are a bottleneck for innovation, and are frustrating entrepreneurs. until the mobile environment will not be as open as the internet it will not be able to create the value created by the internet.

today developers that would like to innovate beyond creating a simple mobile website (very limited in functionality), must go through the carrier’s certification process in the good case, or beg them to open certain APIs in many other cases (e.g. to access the address book, device storage, UI, etc.). and once you get your app running say bye-bye to 30%-50% of the revenue (the fee you have to pay to the gatekeeper).

the handset vendors are also somewhat to blame. they develop phones that are not friendly for developers.

imagine that this was the case for the internet. several major ISPs controlling what users can access, what can run on your PC, and any application developer should give the ISP a major portion of his revenues. do you think amazon, netscape, google, ebay, skype, myspace, yahoo would have happened? do you think all the entrepreneurs would have spent their time trying to build internet companies?

the answer to all these questions is of course “No”. the internet would have been nothing like what we know today.

but unfortunately this is the reality in mobile. an oligarchy that controls the value chain and stifles progress. hearing these executives speak made it clear that change is not going to come voluntarily (they still think their role should be one that polices the industry, putting more barriers and taking more control over what gets to the hands of the consumers. they explain it under the cover of “assuring the quality of the user experience”…).

the good news is that sooner or later (a matter of several years) the walls will fall. they can’t fight technology forever. the move to IP, WiFi, WiMax, advances in handset OS, entry of new players, will eventually lead for the environment to be as open as the internet.