There’s a long way to go
Rating: needs to do much better at the basics
By Annie Turner at CTIA
It’s fascinating talking to the likes of Brian Lent (Medio Systems), Eric McCabe (JumpTap), Steve Leonard (Motricity) which to say I have to mentally rhyme with atrocity). These companies are hugely ambitious and are proposing hugely sophisticated services advertising and content services. It’s hard not to be enthused by it all. But carriers need to get much more basic stuff right first.
I went to top up my Verizon, pay-as-you-go mobile on the web, only to be told it would take between 2 and 5 days - just in time for me to be flying back across the Atlantic. 
It’s cold comfort that if i were a Disney MVNO subscriber, I could do all sorts of fantastic things to in control instantly entire family’s mobile spend through the simple and elegant interface and services provided by mPortal.
Cingular, Verizon and Sprint talk endlessly about boosting data traffic, particularly SMS, but they’ve just made them even more expensive.
Outside of NeoMedia, abaxia and HP, there doesn’t seem to be much interest in QR codes from the US operators, who control, well heavily influence, what the handset makers do and there seems to be no urgency to get cracking. Surely the introduction of QR and the other barcode-type technologies would stimulate mobile Internet use - you don’t have any data input beyond taking a photograph.
Motricity talks about building communities, but doesn’t seem fazed by the fact that SMS and IM are either too expensive or not available, yet they are, after voice, the most obvious means of on the hoof communication with other community members.
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