Hart and Holbrook also see carriers pushing more low-cost services to consumers and enterprise customers. On the enterprise side, Holbrook thinks that carriers will aggressively promote services that require little capital investment or upgrade.

"Think about an enterprise service such as mobile device management that has no capital expenditure and it's a service with very little capital outlay for the customer," he says. "Carriers can look at that and other managed services that are designed to save organizations money but that don't require any special in-house expertise."

On the consumer side, Hart predicts that more users will gravitate toward prepaid plans that allow them to purchase pay-as-you-go minutes that can be refilled over the Internet and that offer unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes with users on the same network. Hart says that AT&T has already started pushing this type of service with its GoPhone service and he says that smaller wireless providers such as Metro PCS and Boost will also stand to gain from promoting their unlimited prepaid plans that charge a flat rate for minutes on their networks and only charge extra for roaming minutes.

But while carriers will try to cut their costs through less network investment and by offering less capital-intensive services, both Hart and Holbrook expect carriers to continue spending lavishly on smartphone subsidies. Although carriers are taking big initial hits by offering consumers devices such as the iPhone and the BlackBerry Storm for US$200 a piece, Hart and Holbrook say they are making up for it with growth in their wireless data revenues. Indeed, since telcos' wireless services are by far their fastest-growing business segment, it makes sense for them to try to maximize their earning power by hooking users onto both voice and data plans.

"I do see these generous subsidies lasting because wireless right now is the only thing that's driving growth," says Holbrook. "We're in a climate where no ship is safe and carriers are battening down the hatches for the tumultuous times ahead."