Telecoms companies were bound to get nervous about the success of Apple’s iPhone apps store. And developers were already disgruntled about its almost esoteric approval process.

But it takes a lot of weight to leverage against such success. A new group of more than 24 telecoms heavyweights – including AT&T, China Mobile and Vodafone – have formed the newly dubbed Wholesale Applications Community, or WAC, to launch an open application platform.

So far, however, WAC raises more questions than it has had time to answer. Why would AT&T hedge against its own alliance with Apple? Do developers need yet another proprietary platform to learn? And how can 24 monoliths come to an agreement on anything? One thing’s for certain, the announcement broadens the apps market to potentially every new handset on the market, bringing mobile net functionality that most closer to ubiquity.

Stay tuned.