While away for a week on family vacation I seemed to have missed quite a lot of shake-ups within the wireless industry. First of all Ericsson's wiping out 25% of its market capitalization within just one day with an unexpected profit warning. But that remained pretty much the only negative news. On the positive or encouraging side the news were:

• Europe will see mobile phones on planes while other territories are more skeptical in opening the skies to GSM and GPRS. So once above 3000 m it will be possible to check for e-mails with your mobile phone unless you are flying across a country - such as the US - where they don't allow this service.
• That mobile phones can, despite cut-throat price competition, be a highly profitable business was demonstrated once more by Nokia. No other phone manufacturer is able to increase net profits when the average phone price is going down. That will make them a strong number one in the industry for quite some time to come and enable them to fight off strong newcomers like Apple.
• With its founders pretty much out now, Skype seems to be looking for ways to generate more revenues and to have found mobile phones. End of October they are supposed to be launching the service with 3 Mobile (owned by Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa) in Britain, Italy, Hong Kong and Australia and other markets later. No plans for the US though. Now pessimistic people might think that 3 Mobile is probably desperate, since its 3G efforts so far have been largely unprofitable and cost them billions. The Skype phone is supposed to work with iSkoot software, a startup based in Cambridge, MA, which is backed by Khosla Ventures among others. Bold strategy it seems, but who knows, maybe the right move for both Skype and 3 Mobile.
• And finally a big not only political win for WiMAX was achieved in the ITU in Geneva where WiMAX got the same status as other 3G wireless technologies which practically means access to precious frequency spectrum. Maybe Ericsson's demonstrated WiMAX absence was not the right strategy after all? Also Cisco is rumored to move into the WiMAX space with an acquisition. Possible candidates named are Alvarion and Redline Communications. The latter seems a more likely candidate since they already work with Cisco for quite some time.