> And.. LTE (or LTE-A) is all-ip anyway, so who needs carriers?
you do realize that, cell-phones or any other access side equipment that you use, passes all data via the epc-core which is provided by the operator right ?
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Yes, but as they said in the article, anybody can set up a virtual operator on the network, be that Nokia or anybody else. My point is that this would make it easy for Nokia to deploy on the US markets which has traditionally been the playground of the operators; i.e. them deciding which devices to support. (They want to be on top of the value chain)
Anyway, LTE provides ground for any VoIP solution which means that traditional carriers might have hard time providing added value with their voice and SMS services compared to just providing data.
You're just not thinking evil enough. They could set data prices such that a VoIP call costs as much as a voice call. Or they could use IMS to impose billing on SMS and VoIP.
and btw for those who don't know, epc stands for evolved packet core, that's the part of the network for setting up the data call session before the packets can be routed to the isp