I'm reading the NQ Mobile Q4 CC transcript at the moment, and there was a question from a Piper Jaffray analist that caught my attention, about how long it took the company to negotiate the deal with America Movil (the third largest carrier in the world in terms of subscribers). Here is CEO Kahn's answer:
I mean from the day I joined in January of 2012, I can tell you it was at the top of my priority list. It's something that we've been working pretty actively for at least the last 13 months. And so carrier deals, especially when they're this broad and this, you know, integrated in terms of how we've structured this and how we're going to market, definitely take multiple quarters to orchestrate, to negotiate, to launch, as well as all of the development work that has to be done
So, if you think you have to wait for a long time for the IOC deals to conclude, think again. The IOC deals are likely to be considerably more complex (for starters, they involve multiple parties, complex politics, etc.).