Akamai CEO Paul Sagan may have delivered a crucial clue for those of you who wondered why a mobile-based technology solution was voted "best new idea likely to succeed" at this summer's CableLabs Innovation Showcase (and you know there's more than a few of you out there). BelAir's picocell product was, at least on the surface, aimed more squarely at improving mobile network connectivity than it was doing anything other than providing some supplemental revenues for cable and yet it got the most votes among the cable guys.
Maybe that's because they understand that there's a bubbling market for cable, starting with a mobile backhaul product and perhaps moving on to its own wireless play. Sagan fed into that theory when he told the Aspen Institute Forum on Communications and Society that "mobile will exceed wired access in less than three years."
BelAir better start cranking up those factories. Time's a wastin'.
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