It would be hard to imagine a world without wireless applications and services. Around the globe, mobile services are playing increasingly important roles in many facets of our society. Just a decade ago, mobile services consisted primarily of basic voice communication. Today, we depend on mobile services not only for communication, but also for education, entertainment, healthcare, location and m-commerce. Mobile services have also made significant inroads into developing nations, by improving the quality of life for many of their citizens.
In this paper, we will discuss the many ways in which people use mobile services daily, as well as how the evolution of wireless technologies enabled the progression of those services. Moreover, we will explore how convergence in wireless technologies and devices are encouraging more mobile-data usage, and how the evolution of wireless technologies, services and devices benefits operators and consumers. It is our goal that readers will gain valuable insights into the driving forces that enable mobile services past, present and future. [2] Mobile Services at the Center of Life
As a society, we are becoming more dependent on mobile services to assist us in life’s everyday requirements. On a typical day, over 1 billion people worldwide rely on mobile-service offerings to get them through their daily routine. In the next several paragraphs, we briefly explore various mobile services that people around the world are using each and every day with growing occurrence.
Mobile Communication—Mobile services are changing the landscape of how we communicate daily; specifically, the why, when, how often, and in what degree we communicate. Today, mobile communication can be ubiquitous (anytime, anywhere, anyplace), personal (instant messaging, picture cards, video messaging) or interactive (push-to-talk
[PTT], video telephony, video sharing). Using mobile