Mobile Services

Mobile services are also called as wireless services or cellular services are a radio communication service between mobile and fixed stations, or between mobile stations. In a mobile network, each cell uses a set of frequencies different from neighbouring cells, in order to avoid interference and provide guaranteed bandwidth within each cell. Through this, a large number of portable transceivers such as mobile phones, pagers, etc can communicate with each other and with fixed transceivers and telephones anywhere in the network, via base stations.

A provision of telephone services given to phones which may move around freely rather than stay fixed in one location is called as Mobile telephony. All over the world, Global System for Mobile Communications i.e. GSM services are a standard collection of applications and features available to mobile phone subscribers and is the world's most dominant mobile phone standard. GSM standards make it possible to use the same phones with different company’s services, or even roam into different countries.

When a GSM call is made, then the speech is converted from analogue sound waves to digital data by the phone, and is transmitted through the mobile phone network by digital means.A GSM standard also provides facilities for transmitting digital data and this also allows a mobile phone to act like computer on the Internet, sending and receiving data via the Internet Protocol.

The General Packet Radio Service i.e. GPRS is a packet-switched data transmission protocol, which was included into the GSM standard. Multiple GPRS users can use a single unused channel, since each of them uses it only for occasional short bursts.  

Short Message Service i.e. SMS also known as text messaging is the most used data application on mobile phones. These SMS text messages can be sent by mobile phone users to other mobile users or external services that accept SMS. The messages are generally sent from mobile devices through the Short Message Service Centre using the MAP protocol. 

Industry Overview

The mobile services industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world with over five billion users. The industry provides telecommunication and information services, such as voice calls, short message service i.e. SMS, internet access, picture and video messaging, and other data services, to 90 percent of the world’s population.

As per the reports, mobile services accounts for around 60% of telecommunications revenue with the remainder coming from fixed and the mobile industry generates around US$900 billion of annual revenue and accounts for around 1.5% of world GDP. There are 5.6 billion mobile customers which is equivalent to around 80% of the world population. 

Mobile Services Market Current Trends

According to the reports given by Gartner, the revenue from global mobile services is expected to reach $1.3 trillion by 2016 and the number of mobile connections will grow to 7.7 billion in 2016 and also forecast that Indian Mobile Services Market to increase upto US$30 Billion in 2016.

Major Industry Players

Some of the global mobile services industry players are Vodafone, China Mobile, and AT&T, Reliance Communications, MTN group, BSNL, Verizon Wireless, Orange etc.