Title: The interworking of emerging wireless access technologies and its impact on the evolution of the mobile e-commerce industry

Authors: David J. Wright

Addresses: Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada

Abstract: This paper identifies nine wireless access technologies that can be expected to be deployed for e-commerce applications in the next one to three years and shows that these nine technologies have sufficiently diverse characteristics to warrant the need for users and network operators to interconnect among them. The paper analyses the role of these interconnections in shaping the evolution of the mobile e-commerce industry structure in terms of three scenarios: the status quo, and oligopolies of either network operators or portal operators.

Keywords: wireless access; mobile e-commerce; industry evolution; open handset alliance; Google; network operators; portal operators; cellular; WiFi; WiMAX; mobile-Fi; WiMedia; WRAN; electronic business; e-business; electronic commerce; mobile communications; interconnection; m-commerce; mobile commerce.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEB.2009.026529

International Journal of Electronic Business, 2009 Vol.7 No.3, pp.256 - 268

Published online: 19 Jun 2009 *

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