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Well. This is news to me.

If you think everything that could have been written about the iPhone already has been written, prepare to be surprised. One vital aspect of Apple's strategy has been overlooked - with multi-billion consequences for complacent network operators.

Over at Telco 2.0, the blog of analysts STL Partners, we learn that networks who partner with Apple must install Apple gear at the data centre to support its services - specifically, the Push Notification service that wakes up the Jesus Phone. Forget the revenues from sales of extra server gear - the key point is that Apple now sits in the middle of the data stream, capturing the customer's data. The analyst outfit describes the iPhone as a potential "poison" for the networks.

STL wrote this week:

"Apple can data mine the application message stream — and it’s been a telco’s dream for years to mediate such flows."

Nokia sell two out of every five mobile phones in the world, and they've ruled the roost for a decade now. But they've failed to convert that market clout into mobile data revenue - for themselves, or the operators. When you discount application-specific services such as RIM's Blackberry Connect and new music services such as Omnifone's MusicStation, mobile data use is negligible.

Because the iPhone makes mobile browsing more of a pleasure than a pain, for the first time, this is changing. And because de facto standards are defined where the people are, this means Apple, not one of the traditional incumbents, could call the shots. Or as the STL boys put it:

"... it doesn’t take massive market share (stimulated by the new low price point) for the iPhone to de facto become the mobile web."

So, sorry, Nokia and Microsoft - you may have turned out to be the Osborne and the Altair of the 21st Century.

And bang go the commercial prospects of turning the bitstream into money:

"You don’t have to be too bright to realise that one of the most likely things to be pushed to a phone in future is an advert, mediated again by Apple," they add.

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