The Business Economics of Growing a Next Generation Mobile Wireless Business
Volume 20, Number 1 Article by Hemant K Sabat March, 2008
The Business Economics of Growing a Next Generation Mobile Wireless Business :
The emerging data-dominated wireless world is very different from the earlier voice-dominated one, and wireless subscribers expect convergent services from mobile wireless service providers. Therefore, the communications industry needs to adopt business models that are governed by economics significantly different from what was prevalent during the voice-only world. Implementing these business models requires new frameworks, approaches and methodologies, but the evolution in the industry has outpaced the research in the field.
Based on the research, analysis and synthesis of the critical factors that influence an operator’s adoption of a particular revenue model, and on a study of more than 300 wireless operators operating in over 150 countries, this paper describes the business economics of growing a next generation voice-plus-data mobile wireless business and integrates the market and business drivers into an effective framework to deliver the required services.
The study analyses the business and market drivers along the three chronological phases of the evolution of the industry, namely, birth, land-grab, and the transition from early wireless data to the emerging next generation mobile wireless phase. It presents the limitations of the prevalent pricing and marketing models that have grown chronologically. Drawing inferences from the above findings, the paper describes and integrates the market and business drivers of the next generation mobile wireless data into the network technology value segmentation framework. This framework was utilised to successfully deploy next generation mobile networks and services in the US, Canada, Europe, South Korea and India.
This framework can be used to value, envision, create, differentiate and price next generation mobile wireless data services and position them with targeted market segments. The stakeholders who would benefit from this paper include researchers, investors, managers and regulators of the industry.
Reprint No 08104