We’ve already talked about the potential impact ad-revenue funded cellphone contracts could have on an industry built around high-return tariffs and costly add-ons, but Business Week are next up to cast a speculative eye over the possibility of a rival network in which customers swap their own attention for those all important bundled minutes.

Key to the concept - and you just know it’s Google that’s fingered as having the background and wherewithal to handle such a monumental task (and make people love it) - is tailored advertising.

Business Week points to existing, far smaller scale endeavours such as Blyk in the UK or Virgin Mobile’s “Sugar Mama”, both of which give free network time to consumers willing to receive ads from marketing partners; they also highlight Google’s capacity to turn even this opening gambit upside down, leveraging their integration of search, geographical location and historical interest to massively focus specific messages that are correct for time, place and - most importantly - functionality present on a mobile device.

“Via Google search, for example, an advertiser learns a user is at the corner bakery in downtown Chicago. And it learns the person has a taste for sweets” Business Week

Quoting analyst speculation that such targeted messages can boost advertising prices by 50-percent (RCBG), it’s an obvious battle between AT&T, Verizon and friends who are wary of offending existing customers with the introduction of heavy advertising and the potential newcomer who, by virtue of building a fresh user base super-aware of what they’re signing up to, have a greater degree of flexibility in packaging network services and at the same time satisfying advertisers.

“Google is the first gambler sitting down with as big a bankroll as the carriers have. By playing in wireless, they have caused people to look at the industry in a different way” John du Pre Gauntt, eMarketer