Mobile telephony

The purpose of this article is to investigate how innovation networks can be used to deal with a changing technological environment. This study combines different concepts related to research and development (R&D) collaboration strategies of large firms and applies these concepts to R&D alliance projects undertaken by Nokia Corporation in the period 1985–2002. The research methodology is a combination of in-depth semistructured interviews and a large-scale quantitative analysis of alliance agreements. For the empirical analysis a distinction is made between exploration and exploitation in innovation networks in terms of three different measures. As a first measure, the difference between exploration and exploitation strategies by means of the observed capabilities of the partners of the contracting firms is investigated. The second measure is related to partner turnover. The present article argues that in exploration networks partner turnover will be higher than in exploitation networks. As a third measure, the type of alliance contract will be taken; exploration networks will make use of flexible legal organizational structures, whereas exploitation alliances are associated with legal structures that enable long-term collaboration. The case of Nokia has illustrated the importance of strategic technology networks for strategic repositioning under conditions of change. Nokia followed an exploitation strategy in the development of the first two generations of mobile telephony and an exploration strategy in the development of technologies for the third generation. Such interfirm networks seem to offer flexibility, speed, innovation, and the ability to adjust smoothly to changing market conditions and new strategic opportunities. These two different strategies have led to distinctly different international innovation networks, have helped the company in becoming a world leader in the mobile phone industry, and have enabled it to sustain that position in a radically changed technological environment. This study also illustrates that Nokia effectively uses an open innovation strategy in the development of new products and services and in setting technology standards for current and future use of mobile communication applications. This article presents one of the first longitudinal studies, which describes the use of innovation networks as a means to adapt swiftly to changing market conditions and strategic change. This study contributes to the emerging, but still inconsistent, literature on explorative and exploitative learning by means of strategic technology networks.

Wireless communication is used in many different situations such as mobile telephony, radio and TV broadcasting, satellite communication, and military operations. In each of these situations a frequency assignment problem arises with application specific characteristics. Researchers have developed different modeling ideas for each of the features of the problem, such as the handling of interference among radio signals, the availability of frequencies, and the optimization criterion. This survey gives an overview of the models and methods that the literature provides on the topic. We present a broad description of the practical settings in which frequency assignment is applied. We also present a classification of the different models and formulations described in the literature, such that the common features of the models are emphasized. The solution methods are divided in two parts. Optimization and lower bounding techniques on the one hand, and heuristic search techniques on the other hand. The literature is classified according to the used methods. Again, we emphasize the common features, used in the different papers. The quality of the solution methods is compared, whenever possible, on publicly available benchmark instances.

This study examines the growth of global mobile telephony and the economic factors that affect this growth. Mobile telephony has exhibited substantial growth in the decade to 2000 and this growth is expected to continue with the introduction of technically advanced mobile cellular networks. A dynamic demand model is estimated by using global telecommunications panel data comprised of 56 countries.

Hans Geser considers the potentially subversive and regressive impact of mobile telephony--reconnecting the individual with a smaller, tighter social world, one which is perhaps solipsistic in its concentration on small individual social networks, oblivious to the larger ...

Soft keyboards are one of the most popular methods to input text for mobile pen-based computing. They allow text input to be performed through an onscreen graphical representation of a standard desk keyboard. Besides standard QWERTY keyboard layout, some researchers have proposed optimized alternative key organizations to improve user performances with soft keyboards. In this paper we propose and evaluate a solution using visual clues to facilitate the acceptance of these optimized layouts by novices.

This paper reports a project working to improve distance education in Bangladesh by means of a low-cost, large-scale interactive learning environment using video, mobile phones, SMS-based tools administered in a learning management system, and innovative pedagogy based on the student-centered learning model. The paper addresses the question of how to use existing mobile telephony technical infrastructure to create interactive learning environments which can reach a majority of the population, be able to include thousands of students, and be sustainable from a resource perspective. This question includes challenges relating to pedagogy and teaching methods, technical tools for learning and communication, and institutional arrangements. The paper addresses these challenges by the illustrative case of the Bangladesh Virtual Interactive Classroom testing the tools and ideas in course at Bangladesh Open University. We find that our tools are feasible and usable but also that sustainability requires meeting organizational and social challenges.

Over the past 10 years, there has been a remarkable progress in the use of ICT in African agriculture, especially in the area of farmers' access to market information. Various projects have been developed that integrate ICTs into the dissemination of agricultural information to farmers. Farmers Information Services at the national and regional level are a promising new field of