Where Is Wireless Innovation Occurring If Not At The Carrier?

France Telecom's Orange Labs

The decision by France Telecom (NYSE: FTE) to close one of its research labs just outside of Boston has led me to wonder: who are the big innovators in wireless today?

It doesn’t seem to be the carrier.

While this can’t be considered a blanket statement for carriers across the globe, most of the buzz being generated today is not from some lab of scientists employed by the operator. Rather, the ones being recognized are the Silicon Valley types, like Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG), and even handset makers, such as Taiwan-based HTC and even BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion.

The Boston Globe reports that the lab, which employs 52 people, will shutdown Oct. 30. The carrier will also continue to have labs in Silicon Valley, France and Japan, so we can’t really claim that France Telecom is deciding to stop innovating at all. That’s not the case for them, or most other carriers.

But you do have to wonder what these labs are doing? It was Apple that blew off the doors to the walled garden, and it’s Google that’s building a platform that will open up the internet to mobile users, and its entrepreneurs all over the world that are building apps and developing new services. HTC is building unique UIs and Nokia (NYSE: NOK) offers email to developing countries. It’s only every once in awhile, a carrier offers something really daring. For instance, AT&T (NYSE: T) reportedly did contribute to Apple’s visual voicemail service, and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) along with China Mobile, Softbank and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) are participating in what

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