As for ad-sponsored Wi-Fi: Yeah, when your business strategy requires you to cover entire cities at a time, costs can get prohibitive. But I think we’ll see a lot of new, ad-sponsored Wi-Fi in specific venues or larger areas (city parks, maybe), and ad revenues will only increase as traffic ramps up thanks to increased consumption on phones and other gadgets.

@Mike — I didn’t mention the possibility of a non-cellular gaming device with voice functionality, but you’re absolutely right — that could be a very compelling gadget.

@Vishal — That’s a very interesting list. I’m not all that familiar with the market, but I’ll be watching closely to see which smartphone vendors and OSes gain the most traction as mobile data consumption ramps up in India.

I think Microsoft buying Palm is a bit out there but apart from that, I agree with most of your predictions. ^^^I think it would be interesting to see how popular the ad-supported Wifi becomes. In the past, the idea has failed to take off — mostly because of the heavy infrastructure spend involved in efforts.^^^ Remember MetroFi?