Mobile Commerce and the Evolving Wireless Technologies

Abstract

The mobile phone industry has experienced an explosive growth in recent years. The emerging markets such as China, India, and Brazil contribute this growth. In China, the number of mobile subscribers has already surpassed the number of fixed landline phone subscribers. In Korea and Japan, there is an explosion of mobile and wireless services. The United States are joining too and there were 207.9 million subscribers in 2005 (CTIA, 2006). Mobile e-commerce (m-commerce) makes business mobility a reality; mobile users could access the Internet at any time, from anywhere with handheld devices or laptop. A 3G enabled smart phone enables you to access a wide range of services anywhere and anytime. For example, you can send and receive e-mail, make cinema and restaurant reservations and pay for them, check real train time, look at digital maps, download music and games, and also browse the Internet. Mobile and wireless services are ranging from mobile communication networks to wireless local area networks. The service provided by mobile communication systems has achieved huge success as mobile and wireless communication technologies are converging at fast speed. We will study mobile and wireless communication in relation to mobile phones. Hence, m-commerce is defined as electronic commerce carried out in handheld devices such as smart phone through mobile and wireless communication network.