The Taco Truck, Reconsidered

If you read my blog, then you may have picked up on the fact that I have what some would term a rather unhealthy fixation — make that obsession — with Mexican food. Not just any Mexican food. Oh, not at all. Colorado red chili? Eh. Machaca burritos? Those I can live without (though I’d prefer not to). But Tex-Mex cheese and onion enchiladas with chili gravy? That’s the stuff of dreams.

In case you’re wondering wherefore the comida angst: I’m from Ft. Worth, and now live in Massachusetts. I think that’s all that needs to be said. In case it’s not, let me put it this way: Love lost is always the greatest, and believe me, the lack of decent Mexican food in my adopted state is appalling and made worse by knowing what the real thing is. Case in point: At “Mama Iguanas” the other night, the waiter tells me about the chile relleno, specifically, that it is stuffed with cauliflower and would I care to order it. Me: “I think not. In fact, I think you’re insane. In fact, I might have to go behind that dumpster over there and cry.”

And so I hold this truth to be self-evident: Not all tacos are created equal. And it’s occurred to me that I can capitalize on this fact. In the form of a taco truck.

Imagine! Once people get a taste of the REAL THING? I’ll be a doyenne of the art of the taco, queen of cumin, mistress of masa. And hopefully, it will make me wealthy enough to retire to Playa del Carmen. Well, at least enough to visit for a month ... or, well, 10 days maybe? A week? A long weekend???? Please?

Now, a taco truck business needs a lot of things, like the truck itself, to start. And someone manning it with mad guacamole skills (got ‘em, if I do say so myself). A cool bandito outfit with bottles of guac and sour cream in either holster doesn’t hurt. But listen up, service providers: To really thrive, the successful taco trucker needs something more than style and delicious cuisine: It needs wireless.

Before you say I’m reaching and just using this space as an excuse to indulge my unnatural love of all things taco-related (who, me?), let me explain. I’ve been thinking a lot about the promise of 4G (or even HSPA for that matter) and it’s occurred to me that 99 percent of the conversation revolves around the ever-fickle and ever-persnickety consumer play. I know more people looking to switch wireless carriers than not, right now. That entirely unscientific assessment ought to tell you something. Now, the enterprise user might be the more high-value, but the applications and markets don’t necessarily jump off the pages of the business case. The most I could get out of Ben Wolff when I spoke to him about WiMAX was that it would “radically change” how businesses operate.

But I can see an object lesson in my taco truck. Consider: it’s a mobile business. One that needs to be able to do credit card transactions (cash only? Not my taco truck). One that needs to call up recipes for special orders. One that needs supply chain applications for replenishing inventory on a just-in-time basis (Jose, more cilantro!). And one that needs to know, depending on the zoning, satellite imagery showing where the fuzz is at all times.

All of that can be enabled today with Wi-Fi, sort of, or satellite, which sounds a little too whiz-bang — sending traffic 22,000 miles up to the Clark Belt? Big dreams for a little cart. No, what taco trucks need — along with thousands of other mobile, ad hoc or generally untethered businesses (prosumer, that’s you) — is 4G. Full on, in-the-air and everywhere broadband. And then think of all the other apps — I could get a pixel screen to put on the side of my cart and rent it out for digital signage — fed wirelessly. I could have a live feed from the local Spanish radio station (inside the studio action!), or run ads for time shares, vacation packages, Mexican pottery — I can see a lot of lucrative synergies for my truck of deliciousness.

These messages are ones service providers should start thinking about now, rather than only chasing the consumer. Just a suggestion.

In other news, mobile content enablement company LiveWire is rolling out a really cool ringback service with Virgin Mobile USA that allows you to essentially subscribe to channels of music, like radio stations — and the tones will rotate through a set list for the month of whatever’s hot within the channel you choose. I was going to talk about that, but I couldn’t resist the siren call of corn tortilla (and a variety of delicious and affordable fillings). Maybe next week.

Also the ‘Bytes is out at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo next week; if you have a channel program, you might want to check it out. Ole!

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