'There are these issues of expectation of quality of service and capacity planning, but there are also concerns such as revenue generation and revenue management that are going to be such an issue for the 2010 World Cup,' says Courtenay.

Over and above this, the types of services operators going to be offering are likely to be much more advanced than those to which subscribers are currently used.

Much faster data services and mobile television broadcasts are likely to be as mainstream as camera phones are now. This means that operators will need to think about how they will bill and offer these services, especially when some of them, such as mobile TV broadcasts, might be provided by a third party.

'We have skills to help telcos with their planning for the changed nature of the value chain of what operators are offering and what the telecom industry will need to be doing,' Courtenay adds.