Revolution Mobilized

1. Executive Summary

At the end of 2004 South Africa became a 3rd Generation (3G) society, that marked the beginning of mobile revolution, as can be seen mobile applications and services are become increasingly intertwined with of our lives.

The introduction covers the transition of 2G to 2.5G to finally 3G and the explosion of the mobile revolution, as well as examining some of the industry stakeholders, technologies / protocols and other requirements for 3G.

In the body of the article details how 3G has impacted business, how it has changed the way people do business and how it has changed our lives. It also looks at the current state of the industry, what are the risks and what are the driving factors.

Then we take a look at a few use cases:

Ð'* Banking

Ð'* Governmental Applications

Ð'* Winners Youth.

In conclusion it is deduced that 3G has definitely impacted every aspect of business and is constantly changing the face of business. 3G is fueled by the need for connectivity and it removes a big hurdle for anyone wanting to live an online lifestyle.

It will definitely be a key player in the future development of our country on a global scale.

2. Introduction

2.1 The Mobile Data Industry

“We are living in an increasingly wireless world and we ourselves are also increasingly mobile. This means that not only communications, but also the daily tasks we perform need to keep up with our mobile lifestyle.”

South African Wireless Applications Market 2005

This statement provides a very broad insight to the Mobile Data Industry (MDI) but encompasses all the aspects that enable us to live a truly mobile life.

The first data services were introduced into South Africa by MTN in 2000 with the launch of GPRS, this was the first 2.5G services in the country, it gave us just a taste of what was to come and mainly caused frustration as it was still a developing technology and not capable of delivering the flashy / user friendly interfaces that consumers were becoming used to from the internet. This caused the slow uptake of the Mobile Internet (MI) and Mobile Services (MS). The bulk of the early services were sms based for example the “surf report” where you could sms your location and receive a simple weather report and sms competitions, which are still one of the largest incomes to this market.

In 2004 Vodacom took the lead and launched its 3G services with MTN soon to follow in 2005, Cell C lagged behind an only offered 3G in 2007. Although Sentech launched in 2003 it only became a mobile service provider years later; iburst launched in 2005.

This opened the door for many other types of business services such as Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISP), Security Services such as vehicle tracking and surveillance and Informational Services such as mapping. This is such a vast topic it could fill many books so for the purpose of this article only a few services are briefly discussed in subsequent sections.

With the services growing and the infrastructure transcending from 2G to 3G, more and more of South Africa became covered with data enabled towers providing more reliable services the industry started to flourish, with the introduction of various new types of services and applications. The public began to hunger for more responsive applications, higher bandwidth and lower costs, has made this a highly competitive industry. Since Wireless Internet Service Providers have offered an alternative to the feudal fixed line operator Telkom and fierce competition from the Mobile Network Operators due to the change of the revenue stream from voice to data, has seen increased bandwidth and coverage areas has made the mobile option viable and more appealing to businesses as a tool for enhancing their business models and increasing there market base.

2.2 The Generations

Ð'* 2.5G вЂ" GPRS / EDGE

2.5G is the interim between 2G(GSM, Voice) and 3G (Digital, Realtime Data), technologies such as EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution) and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and others help to smooth the transition from 2G to 3G, currently this describes most of South Africa and other African countries. That is why South Africa is heading for a revolution. 2.5G is more than just Data Transmition Protocol, its key advantage is that it can utilize the existing infrastructure (Cell Towers, etc), where as 3G requires the existing infrastructure to be upgraded. The services provided by 2.5G are, but not limited to, web browsing, file transfer and email & attachments.

Ð'* 3G

3G is the third Generation of the Mobile Communications Industry, according to The Book of Vision:

“This industry seems to go through a paradigm shift every 10 years. Each shift is characterized by technologies known as first second and third generation systems”.

The mobile industry began in the early 80’s so as you can see their predictions are be spot on.

3G brings real time streaming data, which has nearly unlimited applications, to name a few, MMS, audio streaming, video streaming, real time navigation / tracking.

This diagram depicts the transitions of the generations for the mobile network operators.

2.3 Wireless Network Operators

South Africa has 5 primary wireless network operators, 3 of which are Mobile Network Operators and 2 are Wireless Internet Service Providers.

In 2005 the Mobile Data Services brought in revenues of 2.3 billion or about 5.3% of the Mobile Communications Industry [5].

The 3 Mobile Network Operators (MNO) are summarized below:

Ð'* Vodacom

o Vodacom is the largest MNO in South Africa and offers 3G services via