Monty's Gaming and Wireless Outlook - Issue 186

It would appear the adage of signing up a customer for life has extended to the afterlife and mobile operators now have customers for death.

According to a BBC report this week, more and more people are asking to be buried with their mobiles. Apparently the trend began during cremations when people's requests to be burnt with their mobiles led to several loud explosions when bodies were despatched to the incinerator. Well, that's what happens to batteries when they're heated up.

As somebody whose mobile went off just as my father was about to be cremated, I know how shocking these moments can be, but this is a serious trend. Like wannabe Pharonic-celebrities, people are filling their coffins with material possessions to ease their passing into the void. Maybe you can take it with you after all.

On the subject of death, next week sees trade show hell for mobile executives who may be working their way to an early grave as the relentless chase for deals continues. CTIA is taking place in Vegas, MIPTV is in Cannes and Mobile Content World Asia is in Singapore.

This year MIPTV may be the most interesting one of the three to attend. In the 12 months since the TV crew were last in Cannes, traditional TV companies have finally realised advertising money is drying up and new channels such as mobile TV are vital to their futures.

So expect the show in Cannes next week to be the time when the mobile TV bandwagon came to town and accelerated into hyperdrive. But the mobile operators, publishers and distributors should realise that it is they, and not the TV companies, who may have the ascendancy in any deals that are made.

Rather like riflemen seizing control over archers, mobile publishers are the ones with the magic bullets. The new TV world is is more fragmented than the time when 24 million people used to watch Only Fools and Horses at Christmas. The water cooler moments when last night's TV was discussed are over for good.

It is a world where mobile distributors can reach a billion people and the mobile operators can pick and choose video content from every country in the world. Not a bad hand to be holding when commmercial terms are ready to be struck.

For me, however, I will be several thousand miles away in the Vegas miasma for CTIA and like most other people in the industry hoping that I won't be buried under the amount of work to do. That's something I don't want to take with me when I go.