What hardware/software platforms and network protocols do you envision for the UC mesh? Distributed gossip protocols or centralized named-data and content-centric networking?
The infrastructure and protocols aren't the relevant place for innovation. TCP/IP wasn't the greenfield of money making opportunities when everyone started connecting to the internet. 3G wasn't the greenfield when everyone went mobile.
Look at tablets...they're getting keyboards as an upsell. They're becoming full computing devices. The cell phone companies' walled gardens aren't the future. Maintaining a walled garden requires constantly delivering features people really want. That's not a telephone company's core competency. They're future is in providing infrastructure for general computing. All they really want is mailbox checks.