Mobile Telephony is a strange business. I researched the sector for a couple of weeks at the time of the 3G Licence Auctions but failed to find an angle. Had I done so I would have packaged it and sought to put together a Consortium. But Spread Betting firms like Cantor Index…or IG-Index who I use…also have no idea what to make of the business.

Take Vodafone…the last stand-alone mobile listing to join the cut-throat Broadband market. Their shares were trading at 130p six months ago and are 133.5p at the moment. Cantor’s December spread is 133.5-134.1p. Looks perfectly sensible for shares in a non-volatile Blue Chip company…if there are any left. But seven years ago…at the height of the DotCom Boom…Vodafone was trading at 400p which gives punters something worth calling a Spread.

But Vodafone’s Seven Year Spread is nothing compared to Cable & Wireless…the last Fixed Line listing. C&W rode the Dotcom Bubble to peak at 1500p in 2000, bottomed out at 96p six months ago and is now at 157.75p. Cantor’s December spread is 158.1-159.6. Seven Year Spreads on other Telcom Businesses…and Convergence is the buzz word…are similar. BT fell from 1000p at its dotcom peak to 208p and recovered to 285p; Deutsche Telecom…€105 to €13; France Telecom…€175 to €16 and now trading at €20; Telefonica…€38 to €15.

One of my theories about Trading for Big Gains assumes what makes sense to me makes sense to everyone else…but later on. Next year I plan to devote my time and intelligence to staking out a few Six-Month Opportunities…the Vodafone 130p to 133.5p vis-à-vis time-frame but not for returns.

For this particular investment model…and I will be looking for others…I will need to be a couple of years ahead of the time Future Customers realise the good sense of a particular business model and start buying whatever items their Future Product and Service Supplier offers them.

Leaders of the Herd…Hedge Funds this year…typically pile in 6-12 months ahead of the Pension Funds, Insurance Companies and other Institutional Players who are a year ahead of Jack Public. Old investments…with no way to go but down…get dumped on Jack & Jill along the way. Really smart investors might watch Star Traders like me too.

All this is by way of explaining why I have been giving more thought than your average Jack Public to my Telcom Strategy. ‘When will you make an end?’ the Pope famously yelled at Michelangelo furiously painting frescoes on the ceiling of the Cistern Chapel forty feet away. The artist’s patron would yell this several times a week. Each time he received the same response. ‘When it is done, my Lord! When it is done!’ Well I’m done. Here’s the strategy.

Last week I wrote, phoned and e-mailed Vodafone to inform them that I would not be renewing my 18-month contract when it comes due for renewal on 12/11-2006. In the summer I paid a hundred Swedish kronor (£7.50) for a Swedish Vodafone Simcard and a Pay As You Go account. I will keep my UK Vodafone number on a similar basis and swap Sim-Cards 30 000 feet over the German Sea.

Two years ago I took the Skype name ‘williamnorrisshepherd’ but now I have paid £20 for a 12-month SkypeIn account which provides me with ‘the convenience of a real Personal Number that friends and family can call from normal phones at cheap rates’…together with free Skype Voicemail.

My decision could be seen as Decision Deferment…choosing Telephone and Computer Flexibility rather than a Telcom Platform. But I view my choice as a Strategic Technology Decision that embraces Internet Telephony and moves me free of copper-wired/glass-fibre-cabled Fixed Line Telephony and wireless-based Mobile Telephony.

I think this is in line with my recent Internet Web Hosting moves where I instructed my London-based Domain Name Administrator (easily.co.uk) to transfer cesc.net from their own Web Hosting Service to my new Kentucky-based Internet Service Provider…IX Webhosting. As Easily are agents for an Australian Domain Name Registry I will probably be taking my domain names down under in the next few weeks as well…or sending them to Kentucky.

The Internet Satellite Array placed in space by the Pentagon and kept aloft by NASA provides a Global Telcom Ring for William Norris Shepherd and his Domain Names, Web Pages, Blogs and GPS hand-held set in Vemara’s cabin table…top-of-the-range in 2002 a week but yet to be used in Maritime Engagement and doubtless in need of an upgrade. I can then tap into my Global Telcom Ring from Lund, Cambridge, Bogotá, Eyre, Mumbai, Ningbo or Marin County using any terrestrial means at hand...Skype Edge-Core WM4201 Wi-Fi Phone, Edimax EW-7317LDg Signal Detector, Polycom Communicator, Nokia E61, Internet Café or humble laptop. Little Individuals can outsource too.