Examination of 2.5G GPRS Market and Its Implications

Abstract

This thesis by examining the current 2.5G GPRS technology mainly in terms of GPRS as a source of creating market opportunities and by looking at the world market trends aims to discuss its overall implications on the telecommunication market and further aims to derive the key success factors by analyzing the mobile value chain The first part of the thesis organizes the key features and the concept of the GPRS technology along with its market domain to give clear understanding of this technology and why it has become a critical issue in the telecommunication sector. Secondly, the thesis organizes the GPRS as a source of creating market opportunities showing how the non-voice applications are becoming more interesting and already enjoying great market demand. Thirdly, the thesis presents 2.5G/3G activities that are taking place in major parts of the world to illuminate highlights regarding 2.5G deployments and provide the reader with a clear view about the developments and key issues. Different geographically important regions for 3G perspectives are addressed in separate subsections and these include USA, Asia, South America and Australia along with its overall implications. Fourthly, to provide the key success factors in the GPRS market, the mobile value chain parties are defined as Customers, Terminal Vendors, Application Developers, IT/Mobile Channels and Network Operators and their distinct roles that have to be carried out are examined since all of these players in the value chain are essential to deliver the overall success of the nonvoice services. Finally the result shows that even with all the thorny issues, the 2.5G is making a slow but definitely a steady progress towards positioning itself as the global voice and high data rate service for the future. GPRS will provide a massive boost to mobile data usage and usefulness. That much seems assured from its flexible feature set, its latency and efficiency and speed. The only question is how soon it takes off in earnest and how to ensure that the technical and commercial features do not hinder its widespread use.;3G 서비스 연기론이 공론화 되어가고 있는 상황에서 2001년 상반기부터 유럽, 북미 및 아시아 국가 대다수 이동통신사업자들이 2.5G 서비스라 할 수 있는 GPRS 상용서비스에 박차를 가하면서 이에 대한 관심이 전세계 무선 데이터 통신시장에서 초미의 관심사로 부각되고 있다. 한편 최근 GPRS에 대한 긍정적 부정적 시각이 논의되면서 관련 사업자들은 서비스의 성패여부 및 향후 서비스 전개방향에 대해 많은 관심을 가지고 있다. 이에 따라 본 고에서는 우선 이러한 GPRS 서비스의 개념 및 시장성에 대해 정리하고, 주요 국가별 GPRS의 시장 현황을 알아본다. 또한 이를 바탕으로 성공적인 GPRS를 위한 KEY SUCCESS FACTORS를 도출해 보고자 한다.