There’s a growing increase in the media in rhetoric for an open mobile system—for example, the New York Times opens an article with “First come the grumblings, then the torches and pitchforks.” The article goes on to talk about the jostle between mobile carriers and web giants over how open the mobile system should be, which has been going on for a long time but now seems to be heating up. A year or so ago it was small content companies whining about restrictions placed on them by carriers seeking to protect their customers—now it’s big media companies and customers themselves railing against the “straightjacket” applied by the telcos. What’s changed (apart from media rhetoric)? “The catalysts are threefold, said Mr. Weiden: the proliferation of new technologically advanced mobile phones, greater bandwidth and increased competition. But mainstream consumers too are being conditioned to expect more, particularly after the debut of the iPhone which offers easy-to-use Web browsing, Wi-Fi capabilities and high-quality video.” In Australia Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC) held a meeting of 24 executives from the Australian media industry, who came to the conclusion that “Australia’s mobile networks such as Telstra, Optus, Hutchison and Vodafone, (NYSE: VOD) are stifling innovation by restricting access to multimedia content” reports Australian IT. Hardly surprising, but they do have some valid points: “Take sport, for instance. If you want to watch the rugby, you need to sign up with Vodafone. If it’s Test cricket you want to see, you need a Hutchison 3 handset and subscription...If you want to watch all sports and a bit of telly on the small screen, you need four phones, or at least four SIM cards, which you have to keep swapping. This is crazy.” Mind you, is this the carriers fault or that of the different leagues selling the rights to the mobile broadcast? They want carriers to work together to devise a collaborative open access system, but considering the amount that carriers have spent on getting exclusive rights they’re going to need a big incentive to share. All this rhetoric does reflect the attitude in the industry, but I wonder how much pressure really is being put on the carriers? I suspect it will largely depend (in the US, at least) on the results of the upcoming spectrum auction.