Proposed deals verify mobile angst

Regarding the Alcatel-Lucent/NEC deal and the rumored Motorola-Nortel deal, these developments are symptoms of the angst in the mobile infrastructure market, the slowing of investment in infrastructure that is accompanying a lack of convincing growth in ARPU, and concerns about regulatory shifts and voice pricing. The vendors are looking for something to hang their future revenue model on, as well as to reduce costs and pull back their exposure to the mobile market. More of this sort of thing, and other activities related to the overall mobile infrastructure challenges, can be expected through this year and into 2009.