If there is one analogy that keeps being trotted out these days in the mobile content business, it’s whether or not the content cake—also referred to as the pie/ cheese/ or lunch—can be grown, so that while players may get a smaller piece, they’re actually getting more because, well, the cake’s bigger. That’s the explanation Vodafone chief Arun Sarin likes to dole out whenever he is asked what he makes of all these companies—including Nokia—making a run for mobile web services. But other operator bosses have a harder time being so sanguine—or is it resigned?

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“Everybody is coming to our turf,” moaned Frank Esser, CEO of number two French network SFR at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in Paris on Thursday, Reuters reported. Still, he conceded, “We have to innovate. To ask Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and others to stay out is not reasonable.”

Also on hand was T-Mobile CEO Hamid Akhavan. In the past, Akhavan has said he would not tolerate Nokia’s move into internet services, though earlier this month, his network ended up signing an agreement that will see the Ovi portal placed on certain Nokia handsets that will be offered through T-Mobile. We guessed at the time T-Mobile was dragged kicking and screaming into the deal—which Akhavan confirmed. Nokia apparently hammered away for six months in what the T-Mob boss called “a significant negotiation process,” with him finally relenting that Ovi might “actually help…drive data subscriptions.” Still, he couldn’t help grousing, “My life would be simpler if they would have not come to my space. It is still not the happiest thing to have someone try and take your cheese away.”