A growing number of people are getting their mobile content from sources other than their carrier, reports BusinessWeek. The article cites Strategy Analytics analyst David Kerr as saying that the proportion of mobile content purchased from carriers will fall from 80 percent now to about 25 percent in five years. Growth in the overall mobile content market has also slowed, growing 15 percent in 2007 compared to 90 percent in 2006 according to CTIA. Are the carriers worried? Not really, they’re quoted as saying they’ll make up for the lost revenue through fees for the Web access that makes content downloads possible, with data revenue growing 53 percent in 2007 to $23 billion. The quotes: “The content piece is not as meaningful for service providers as access,” says Kevin Packingham, vice-president for product development at Sprint (NYSE: S) Nextel. “That’s what’s really going to move the needle.” Adds AT&T’s (NYSE: T) chief marketing officer, David Christopher: “We never said these content areas would take over the world.” Which is pretty disingenuous, considering carriers have spent the last several years desperately applying mortar to crumbling walls around their content gardens and insisting they would never become a “bit pipe”.