"The genie is out of the bottle," said George Grey, the CEO of photo-sharing application developer , about the open mobile Web. "While 90% of the phones being sold today are extremely limited, the and platform are a sign of things to come."

Steve Krom, vice president of mobility for the New England region, acknowledged at the MassNetComms panel that many carriers simply do not yet know how much they will profit from advertising revenues generated by an open mobile Internet.

"We're at the early stages of understanding what are going to be successful business models," Krom said.

But many panelists said it would become critical for carriers and ISPs to develop their own unique brand of content and applications that would drive advertising revenue. The problem, they said, is that carriers won't only be competing with each other but with other tech companies such as Google and Apple for advertising and service dollars.

"On my iPhone, I don't pay AT&T for the content I'm consuming," Grey noted. "I use iTunes and I pay Apple."