Telecoms in 2013: Barking up the right tree

Predicting the future is a tricky business, but year-after-year we at Total Telecom make it look easy, by foretelling with a worrying degree of accuracy – in most cases anyway – what the upcoming 12 months has in store for the industry. So when the end of another year beckons, we like to take some time to review exactly how precise the predictions we made this time last year were. Read on to find out. THE GOOD... Leap of faith What we said would happen: "More consolidation will take place in the U.S. The T-Mobile USA/MetroPCS and Softbank/Sprint deals will receive regulatory approval next year, leaving other players looking for acquisitions of their own. Leap Wireless will find itself the target for one of the big players." What actually happened: Sure enough, AT&T in July agreed to acquire Leap Wireless for roughly $1.2 billion in cash, in order to accelerate its move into the low-cost mobile market. Meanwhile, satellite TV provider Dish gave up on its attempt to snatch Sprint away from Softbank and instead turned its attention to beleaguered LTE wholesaler LightSquared in a bid to land some valuable mobile spectrum…