Mobile carriers are trying to make an impossible transition.

They want to move from a data world where every bit is precious, and where every file is controlled, into a broadband world where phones have PC functions. And they want to do it without changing their business models.

It can't happen. The industry's dirty little secret prevents it.

That secret is that most cellular minutes today are wasted. Perhaps as many as 80% of the minutes customers are allocated in their contracts each month aren't used. And this has been the source of immense profits. (The illustration, in time for Valentine's Day weekend, is a Korean product for women that also enables the creation of twin secrets.)

Modern cellular marketing is all built around contracts, with a fixed monthly charge for a fixed number of minutes over a fixed term. To get contracts incentives are offered, including free phones.

But look at what happens. Marketing convinces people to pay high prices for plans with high limits. Cingular's "rollover" plan costs a mininum of $40/month, which comes out to about $45 with taxes and other fees. Advertising convinces people they need high limits to deal with "ugly over-age charges." But it's difficult to measure your usage in the middle of the month, and the vast majority of customers don't come close to their limits.

When the contract term expires, usually in a year, customers can theoretically leave that carrier for another one, taking their phone number with them, and even get a new set of incentives, like a new, more advanced phone. But most are as ignorant of their contract expirations as they are of the status of their minute bucket. (Quick: what's your contract expiration date?)

Carrier profitability thus depends on ignorance, customers with old phones who don't take out new contracts and don't use their gear. And in that environment, who needs broadband? Where is the market for PC functionality?

Exactly. It doesn't exist.

Carriers face a choice. They can either admit to the old scam in order to sell new contracts, with new phones, on new networks. Or they can keep doing business the same old way.

Guess what they've chosen? (My point here, by the way, is that carriers would actually profit and manage their transition more easily by revealing their little secret, as Melissa Etheridge did.)

Also as a result, re-sellers who might clue folks in to their contract status, and how many minutes they have left, as well as the new data services available with better phones, are anathema to the carriers when they should in fact be welcomed, because they're the best way to manage the transition.

Like a middle-aged man who's boffing his secretary while running for mayor this is bound to end badly. The only question is who, in the market, is going to call them on it and demand fealty to the customer.

I just did it. But I'm just a blogger.