If we look at what mobile networks can do today, they are heavily voice and texting centric, which also underpins the dominant mobile experience.

3G networks can do video today, ‘out of the box.’ Yes, it is circuit switched, but these circuits aren’t currently being switched that much. To me, this represents a huge opportunity, especially because, unlike so many other attempts to access the mobile network, the video route is more open than most. By default, all 3G phones can make video calls (okay - provided its been enabled on the SIM, but increasingly it is - this was an early crude control mechanism whilst billing hooks weren’t in place for video. Too often, operators take such a brute force approach because of their inflexible billing platforms.)

The blossoming short-code business for video is possibly the next big thing to open up new off-portal revenues, similar to what we saw with texting services.

My beef with switched video has always been the image quality. However, as Dilithium Network’s Founder/CTO Marwan Jabri recently commented on this blog, the new MPEG4 codecs are making a big difference to the quality within the relatively narrowband circuit.

The coolest service on the planet still waiting to happen is geo-tagged video - pinning video messages for each other on street corners etc. I’ve been writing about it for years now and surprised that it still hasn’t happened. It’s so easy to implement. I designed such a platform for Motorola, but it wasn’t deployed. Why not contact Marwan Jabri, if you’re interested. (Hint: we used their 3G-324M/H.324 video gateway and service creation engine.) Or I could tell you how to do it! I just so much want to see it out there.

I hope that the 3G iPhone has video and A-GPS! A geo-tagged video mash-up with Google Maps would be so easy, never mind instant YouTube video submission.