Wireless Telephone Industry example essay topic

There every where and their various tones can be heard ringing out from the bleachers of a little league game to the pin drop silence of a board meeting. What are these seemingly mobile music boxes you ask? Cellular telephones! Once only for the social elite the cell telephone have now become a common commodity. This little essentiality mobile personal communication device has transformed American the face of society. No long confined to the length of a cord, telephones are now able to go just about everywhere.

With ever improving technological advancements in micro chip hardware the big bulky bag telephones of old are being traded in for sleek compact telephones what can fit in the palm of a child's hand. Now there is no such time as long distance if you " re on a cell telephone. Wireless communication as we know it today had it began in radio; actually a cellular telephone is a type of two-way radio. It wasn't until 1947 when AT&T propositioned the Federal Communications Committee (FCC) to allocate a radio frequencies did a mobile network become feasible. The research began with crude car telephone within the Chicago area. Despite the small number of radio frequencies set aside the research showed so much promise and potential However when one the enormous commercial opportunity was recognized AT&T could not maintain there monopoly on the market.

How cellular telephones work is really very simple, they use low-energy FM radio waves to transmit voice to the nearest antenna site connected with the local telephone network. The call goes through either a regular telephone line, or by radio signal to another cell telephone, depending on the service. Wireless technology uses individual radio frequencies over and over by dividing service areas into different geographic zones. These zones are called 'cells. ' Cells can be as small as Madison Square Garden or as large as New York City.

Typically, there are more cells in cities than in rural areas simply because there are more people trying to make calls in urban areas. Each has its own radio transmitter and receiver antenna linked to Mobile Telephone Switching Offices (MTS Os). As the caller moves from one place to the next, the call is handed off by the MT SO to the next cell site, providing a consistent, high quality signal. When a subscriber travels outside of a service area, calls can still be made by "roaming" on the systems of other wireless carriers. These carriers take up the call signal and allow calls to be made or received within their coverage area. Roaming works because carriers like Cellular One network with other carriers throughout the country to provide broad coverage areas.

When the market was first developed it constitutes only included the social elite, however it has evolved into a multi-billion dollar a year industry. Once, only catering to the well off wireless telephones have become so affordable that consumers are picking them up instead of landline telephones at a greater rate than expected, but they still have serious concerns about quality and coverage, according to a report published by the Better Business Bureau in February 2000. Problems with service; though some may be perceived rather than real, could hamper future efforts for mobile business, concluded E une Signi, an analyst the Bureau who helped coordinate the annual survey of 2,910 mobile-telephone users. 'If a user is not confident enough to make a call why would they be confident enough to make a transaction?' asked Signi. 'It's a barrier, but it's not something that can't be overcome. ' The survey points out glitches in wireless usage, but it is still bullish on the future.

Wireless penetration in the U.S. is 37 percent today and The Bureau expects that to grow to 62 percent by 2005. By those estimates, wireless subscribers would grow from over 100 million today to 177 million by 2005. Seventy-two percent of wireless calls are made for personal reasons and 28 percent are business-related. Most wireless calls, 61 percent, are made in the car or other transportation; 6 percent are done from 'the primary workspace,' and 12 percent in the home. The percentage of calls made from the car has gone down since 1999, leading the authors to conclude that people take their wireless telephone along with them to more places. 'People are used to having wireless as part of their lifestyle; it's not just inside the car,' Signi said.

'Now people take it with them everywhere. ' Almost 95 percent of the respondents to the Boston-based consulting group's survey use a wireless telephone. 29 percent said that they sometimes use wireless telephones instead of landline telephones. But consumers are not likely to give up landline connections entirely. Seventy-five percent of respondents feel that wireless and home telephones will always be separate, a figure that is up from 67 percent in 1999.

'They haven't developed the same level of comfort with wireless,' Signi said. Between 5 and 7 percent of the respondents said that they 'very often' experience poor sound quality, poor coverage, dropped or disconnected calls, or blocked or incomplete calls. Those numbers have increased from 1999 when they ranged from 2 to 3 percent. And while 75 percent of respondents said they are generally satisfied with service based on such things as voice quality, coverage, value for the money and customer service, only 41 percent said they are very satisfied with those things. Twenty-three percent of respondents with children say that at least one child under 18 uses the wireless telephone, up from 5 percent in 1999. Fifty-four percent of respondents cite emergencies and security as the prime reasons.

Parents are responsible for bearing the costs, according to 72 percent of the respondents. With expectations well over the 200 million mark for 2006 consumers show no signs of slowing down. Beginning in 1984, Motorola lead the way with its Motorola Dyna TAC 8000 X 'Brick Phone', which weighed 2 pounds, offered only one half hour of talk-time and sold for $3,995. Now with such innovations as push to talk. Nationwide walk ie-talkie service can provide your entire team "instant" voice communications at the push of a button, an indispensable feature when workers and managers need information quickly.

Security is the largest challenge facing wireless telephones today. Unlike hard-wired systems, unauthorized listeners can compromise data transmitted over wireless airwaves without the need to gain physical access to the network infrastructure. With the strong and growing customer demand for wireless communication, the serious security issues that exist must be addressed. Especially since the next generation of young up and coming entrepreneurs will be using cellular telephones as their platform to market. This new type of transaction is called mobile e-commerce; defined as the ability to perform commercial transactions from a mobile phone or other wireless device. Although so analysis it is predicted that the volume of personal mobile e-commerce will exceed that from fixed computers by 2005, the security technology, which is vital for its success, has not been agreed.

With advantages such as convenience, availability, the issues of security is the only discouraging factor. From an economic stand point wireless telephone industry has been one of the fastest growing industries in the United States since the mid-1980's. The growth in the industry, in terms of capital investment, has taken place at a much faster rate than predicted in even the most optimistic forecasts. According to the most recent Cellular Telephone Industry Association (CTIA) Semiannual Wireless Survey, 86 million Americans subscribed to wireless service in 1999, and analysts project 175 million subscribers by 2007. The growth in wireless subscribers has had a dramatic effect on the U.S. economy in terms of job creation. The wireless industry directly supplied 4,334 American jobs in 1986.

By 1999, the wireless industry directly supplied over 155,000 jobs and was responsible for creating another million jobs in industries that support wireless telecommunications. The wireless industry is part of the high technology community that is the engine of our economic prosperity, creating new jobs and new opportunities for all Americans. The rapid pace of technological innovation that has characterized the wireless industry in the past will continue and even increase in the future. The wireless industry is evolving from an industry that provided primarily voice communications services to one that increasingly works as a network providing computer functionality, such as Internet access. New third-generation ('3 G') products will provide similar, much improved, services to remote users. Anticipated uses for new technologies include enhanced voice and high-speed data links to office computers, the ability to send and receive faxes, high-speed Internet connectivity, video transmission and video conferencing.

Wireless companies such as Verizon plan to expand wireless networks into new markets and rural areas with the goal of uninterrupted service throughout North America. The current expansion in networks has distributed the job growth from metropolitan areas to some of the most rural parts of the country. Continued investment in network upgrades and expansion will continue to have a positive effect on local economies throughout the country. Mobile data services available over the new wireless digital networks will permit increased expansion of Internet access into urban, rural and suburban communities,.