Abstract The purpose of this paper is to use a dynamic view of systems of innovations in order to explore the roles of a public sector in identifying innovative opportunities introduced by new technologies and new high tech products and shaping the competitive advantages of Sweden. This thesis is limited as to the field of good products in the mobile communication industry. Basing that if a country can specialize, put and allocate all of its efforts in the mobile telecommunication industry, the country could possibly enjoy better economic growth and competitive advantages comparing with other countries specialized in other less promising industries. While deducing contemporary innovation theories, the conflicts and contradictions are notified between the proactive roles assumed by the government sector in creating innovations and traditional views concerning the appearing of radical innovations. According to those theories, the public agencies are proposed to assume more responsibilities in creating innovations, while the sources of innovations are merely considered as a result of ¡§chance¡¨ or ¡§serendipity¡¨. A proactive view in articulating the roles of the government agencies is illustrated in this thesis in the respects of the intentions of technical developments. Using NMT and GSM standard development process as empirical cases, it is concluded that circumstances are favorable for radical innovations where a competent public sector agency with visions places procurement orders based on transparent competition and open standards or technical specifications, coupled with a competitive producer market. In the meanwhile, while working closely together with international standardization institutions and taking part in R&D projects, the pubic sector plays a different role, namely, as an entrepreneur, a catalyst, and a competent user, in the innovation process of the mobile telecommunication development. Key Words: Innovation, Sweden, Mobile Telecommunication, Public Sector, Ericsson, NMT, GSM

Tunability and adaptability for radio frequency (RF) front-ends are highly desirable because they not only enhance functionality and performance but also reduce the circuit size and cost. This thesis presents a number of novel design strategies in DC-DC converters, impedance networks and adaptive algorithms for tunable and adaptable RF based mobile telecommunication systems. Specifically, the studies are divided into three major directions: (a) high voltage switch controller based DC-DC converters for RF switch actuation; (b) impedance network designs for impedance transformation of RF switches; and (c) adaptive algorithms for determining the required impedance states at the RF switches. In the first stage, two-phase step-up switched-capacitor (SC) DC-DC converters are explored. The SC converter has a simple control method and a reduced physical volume. The research investigations started with the linear and the non-linear voltage gain topologies. The non-linear voltage gain topology provides a higher voltage gain in a smaller number of stages compared to the linear voltage gain topology. Amongst the non-linear voltage gain topologies, a Fibonacci SC converter has been identified as having lower losses and a higher conversion ratio compared to other topologies. However, the implementation of a high voltage (HV) gain Fibonacci SC converter is complex due to the requirement of widely different gate voltages for the transistors in the Fibonacci converter. Gate driving strategies have been proposed that only require a few auxiliary transistors in order to provide the required boosted voltages for switching the transistors on and off. This technique reduces the design complexity and increases the reliability of the HV Fibonacci SC converter. For the linear voltage gain topology, a high performance complementary-metaloxide- semiconductor (CMOS) based SC DC-DC converter has been proposed in this work. The HV SC DC-DC converter has been designed in low voltage (LV) transistors technology in order to achieve higher voltage gain. Adaptive biasing circuits have been proposed to eliminate the leakage current, hence avoiding latch-up which normally occurs with low voltage transistors when they are used in a high voltage design. Thus, the SC DC-DC converter achieves more than 25% higher boosted voltage compared to converters that use HV transistors. The proposed design provides a 40% power reduction through the charge recycling circuit that reduces the effect of non-ideality in integrated HV capacitors. Moreover, the SC DC-DC converter achieves a 45% smaller area than the conventional converter through optimising the design parameters. In the second stage, the impedance network designs for transforming the impedance of RF switches to the maximum achievable impedance tuning region are investigated. The maximum achievable tuning region is bounded by the fundamental properties of the selected impedance network topology and by the tunable values of the RF switches that are variable over a limited range. A novel design technique has been proposed in order to achieve the maximum impedance tuning region, through identifying the optimum electrical distance between the RF switches at the impedance network. By varying the electrical distance between the RF switches, high impedance tuning regions are achieved across multi frequency standards. This technique reduces the cost and the insertion loss of an impedance network as the required number of RF switches is reduced. The prototype demonstrates high impedance coverages at LTE (700MHz), GSM (900MHz) and GPS (1575MHz). Integration of a tunable impedance network with an antenna for frequency-agility at the RF front-end has also been discussed in this work. The integrated system enlarges the bandwidth of a patch antenna by four times the original bandwidth and also improves the antenna return loss. The prototype achieves frequency-agility from 700MHz to 3GHz. This work demonstrates that a single transceiver with multi frequency standards can be realised by using a tunable impedance network. In the final stage, improvement to an adaptive algorithm for determining the impedance states at the RF switches has been proposed. The work has resulted in one more novel design techniques which reduce the search time in the algorithm, thus minimising the risk of data loss during the impedance tuning process. The approach reduces the search time by more than an order of magnitude by exploiting the relationships among the mass spring’s coefficient values derived from the impedance network parameters, thereby significantly reducing the convergence time of the algorithm. The algorithm with the proposed technique converges in less than half of the computational time compared to the conventional approach, hence significantly improving the search time of the algorithm. The design strategies proposed in this work contribute towards the realisation of tunable and adaptable RF based mobile telecommunication systems.

This research assesses the performance of over-dispersed Poisson regression model and negative binomial model with count data. It examines the association between price plan features of mobile phone services and the number of people who adopt the plan. Mobile service data is used to estimate the model with a sample of one million customers running from February 2006 to September 2009. Under three main categories, customer type, age, and handset price, we run the model based on price plan features. Estimates are derived from the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method. Root mean squared error (RMSE) is used to observe the statistical fits of all the regression models. Then, we construct four estimation and holdout samples, leaving out one, three, six, and twelve months. The estimation constitutes the in-sample (IS) and the holdout represents the out-sample (OS). By estimating the IS, we predict the OS. Root mean squared error of prediction (RMSEP) is checked to see how accurate the prediction is. Results generally suggest that academic year start (AYS), seasonality, duration of months since launch of price plan (DMLP), basic fees, rate with no discount (RND), free call minutes (FCM), free data (FD), free text messaging (FTM), free perk rating (FPR), and handset support all show significant effect. The significance occurs depending on the segment. The RMSE and RMSEP show that the over-dispersed Poisson model outperforms the negative binomial model. Further implications and limitations of the results are discussed. / text

The telecom operators are experiencing low revenues due to reduction in voice calls and SMS in their networks mainly driven by communication services like Skype, Google talk, msn and other VOIP (voice over internet protocol) products. Instant messaging services and social networking are also taking away the operator’s customers reducing them to “dumb pipes” with the OTT (Over the Top) players like Google, Microsoft and other content providers making profits at the expense of the operator. The growth of operators’ revenue is not keeping pace with the growth of traffic in their networks creating the perception that the content providers and OTT players do not share their revenue generated using the operator’s infrastructure. The operators are therefore increasingly being reduced to act as “dumb pipes” connecting the content generated by OTT’s with the operator’s subscribers. The operator’s revenue stream in one-sided, only coming from the subscriber usually as a flat data plan. The operator’s are looking at new revenue models and the cloud computing market is a business opportunity which allows them to monetize their network resources with the possibility to earn revenue from both the subscriber and the content providers. The communication system providers who are the communication equipment vendors to the operators are indirectly affected from the shrinking operator revenue. As part of this thesis, we address how Telco’s and system vendors can differentiate in the cloud computing market against other cloud service providers and monetize the network resources which they own. We discuss the roles in the cloud value network and activities in the value chain that could be adopted and the business opportunities they could pursue. We begin by introducing the telecom operator market and the challenges faced by the industry today. The research question we are targeting is then discussed followed by the limitations of the thesis. The lecommunication industry, cloud computing technology and the relevant service delivery models are discussed. A literature review is then done to formulate our theory. Theory on strategy by Porter, Prahalad and other researchers who have contributed to the research on cloud computing are discussed. The method adopted is then proposed. Data collected is first presented and then analyzed before discussing the results of the analysis.

<p>Due to the more and more fierce competition in today’s business, many companies are required to build long-term profitable relationship with customers and to achieve customer loyalty. Therefore, relationship marketing has become more and more important since last decade of 20th century, especially in service industry. There are many different relationship marketing tactics implemented for retaining customer. However, some of those tactics did not affect customer loyalty effectively, and switching behaviors frequently occur among most of targeted customers. Therefore, this study is aimed to investigate the impact of relationship marketing tactics on customer satisfaction and trust, which in turn increase customer loyalty, by focusing on Swedish mobile telecommunication sector. A analytical model is developed as a guildline to test the relationships between relationship marketing tactics, relationship quality (trust and satisfaction) and customer loyalty. </p><p>a quantitative method with deductive approach are chosen in this research. In order to collect primary data, a self-completed questionnaire is designed and randomly sent out by email to the students in Halmstad University. The SPSS for windows is used to process the primary data. The findings shows that Service Quality, Price Perception, and Value Offers have impact on customer loyalty indirectly via the customer satisfaction and trust. Brand image is positively and directly related to customer loyalty. However, switching costs is found to be less correlation with customer loyalty, as well as satisfaction and trust in Sweden telecommunication industry.</p>

Due to the more and more fierce competition in today’s business, many companies are required to build long-term profitable relationship with customers and to achieve customer loyalty. Therefore, relationship marketing has become more and more important since last decade of 20th century, especially in service industry. There are many different relationship marketing tactics implemented for retaining customer. However, some of those tactics did not affect customer loyalty effectively, and switching behaviors frequently occur among most of targeted customers. Therefore, this study is aimed to investigate the impact of relationship marketing tactics on customer satisfaction and trust, which in turn increase customer loyalty, by focusing on Swedish mobile telecommunication sector. A analytical model is developed as a guildline to test the relationships between relationship marketing tactics, relationship quality (trust and satisfaction) and customer loyalty. a quantitative method with deductive approach are chosen in this research. In order to collect primary data, a self-completed questionnaire is designed and randomly sent out by email to the students in Halmstad University. The SPSS for windows is used to process the primary data. The findings shows that Service Quality, Price Perception, and Value Offers have impact on customer loyalty indirectly via the customer satisfaction and trust. Brand image is positively and directly related to customer loyalty. However, switching costs is found to be less correlation with customer loyalty, as well as satisfaction and trust in Sweden telecommunication industry.

Bachelor's thesis. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

Τα τελευταία χρόνια τα δίκτυα επικοινωνιών τρίτης γενιάς (3G) - Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) γνωρίζουν μεγάλη άνθηση και η χρήση τους έχει επεκταθεί στις περισσότερες ευρωπαϊκές χώρες, όπως και στην Ελλάδα. Τα νέα αυτά κινητά δίκτυα αντικαθιστούν τα υπάρχοντα κινητά δίκτυα δεύτερης γενιάς και επιπλέον προσφέρουν προηγμένες υπηρεσίες στους κινητούς χρήστες. Ωστόσο, η αδήριτη ανάγκη για μεγαλύτερες (ευρυζωνικές) ταχύτητες πρόσβασης οδήγησε στην περαιτέρω ανάπτυξη των 3G δικτύων και στην υιοθέτηση νέων τεχνολογιών, με κυριότερο εκπρόσωπο τους την τεχνολογία High Speed Packet Access (HSPA). Η τεχνολογία HSPA αποτελεί τη φυσιολογική μετεξέλιξη του UMTS, η οποία πολλές φορές συναντάται και ως 3.5G ή 3G+, προκειμένου να δηλώσει την αναβάθμιση του 3G (UMTS) προτύπου. Ωστόσο, παρά το γεγονός ότι η τεχνολογία HSPA αναμένεται να προσφέρει τη δυνατότητα παροχής πληθώρας ευρυζωνικών υπηρεσιών, το 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), που αποτελεί τον οργανισμό που προτυποποιεί τις νέες τεχνολογίες και ορίζει τις προδιαγραφές τους, ήδη μελετά και επεξεργάζεται νέες τεχνολογίες που θα επικρατήσουν την αμέσως επόμενη δεκαετία στην αγορά των κινητών επικοινωνιών. Το νέο αυτό project αποκαλείται Long Term Evolution (LTE) και στοχεύει στην επίτευξη ακόμη υψηλότερων ρυθμών μετάδοσης σε συνδυασμό με την αξιοποίηση μεγαλύτερου εύρος ζώνης. Κύρια προοπτική του LTE αποτελεί η διασφάλιση της ανταγωνιστικότητας και η επικράτηση του προτύπου στο χρονικό ορίζοντα της επόμενης δεκαετίας. Ταυτόχρονα με την εκτεταμένη εξάπλωση των δικτύων κινητών επικοινωνιών επόμενης γενιάς καθώς και τις αυξημένες δυνατότητες των κινητών συσκευών, οι πάροχοι πολυμεσικού περιεχομένου και υπηρεσιών ενδιαφέρονται όλο και περισσότερο για την υποστήριξη της πολυεκπομπής (multicasting) δεδομένων στα δίκτυα αυτά με σκοπό την αποτελεσματική διαχείριση και επαναχρησιμοποίηση των διαθέσιμων πόρων του δικτύου. Επιπρόσθετα, οι χρήστες των κινητών δικτύων έχουν πλέον την απαίτηση να προσπελαύνουν εφαρμογές και υπηρεσίες οι οποίες μέχρι σήμερα μπορούσαν να διατεθούν αποκλειστικά από τα συμβατικά ενσύρματα δίκτυα. Έτσι λοιπόν στις μέρες μας γίνεται λόγος για υπηρεσίες πραγματικού χρόνου όπως mobile TV, mobile gaming, mobile streaming κ.α. Ένα από τα σημαντικότερα βήματα των δικτύων κινητών επικοινωνιών προς την κατεύθυνση της παροχής νέων, προηγμένων πολυμεσικών υπηρεσιών είναι η εισαγωγή της υπηρεσίας Multimedia Broadcast / Multicast Service (MBMS). Η υπηρεσία MBMS έχει σαν κύριο σκοπό την υποστήριξη IP εφαρμογών πανεκπομπής (broadcact) και πολυεκπομπής (multicast), επιτρέποντας με αυτό τον τρόπο την παροχή υπηρεσιών υψηλού ρυθμού μετάδοσης σε πολλαπλούς χρήστες με οικονομικό τρόπο. Η multicast μετάδοση δεδομένων σε κινητά δίκτυα επικοινωνιών είναι μια σχετικά νέα λειτουργικότητα η οποία βρίσκεται ακόμη στο στάδιο των δοκιμών και της προτυποποίησης της. Ένας multicast μηχανισμός μεταδίδει τα δεδομένα μόνο μία φορά πάνω από κάθε ασύρματο σύνδεσμο που αποτελεί τμήμα των μονοπατιών προς τους προορισμούς-κινητούς χρήστες. Στη συγκεκριμένη διπλωματική εργασία παρουσιάζουμε αναλυτικά τον multicast τρόπο λειτουργίας του MBMS και αναλύουμε την απόδοσή του με βάση το κόστος μετάδοσης των πακέτων κάτω από διάφορες τοπολογίες δικτύου και κατανομές χρηστών. Η ανάλυση του συνολικού κόστους μετάδοσης λαμβάνει υπόψη το κόστος αποστολής των πακέτων από τον αποστολέα στους παραλήπτες συμπεριλαμβανομένου του κόστους για το paging των χρηστών, το κόστος επεξεργασίας και μετάδοσης στους κόμβους του δικτύου και το κόστος που υπεισέρχεται στους συνδέσμους της τοπολογίας. Στα πλαίσια της αξιολόγηση της ανάλυσης εξετάζουμε όλα τα κανάλια μεταφοράς που μπορούν να χρησιμοποιηθούν για τη μετάδοση των multicast δεδομένων πάνω από την ασύρματη διεπαφή του δικτύου. Η ανάλυση θα φανερώσει πως ανάλογα με την τρέχουσα κατάσταση του δικτύου (πλήθος χρηστών, κατανομή χρηστών, κοκ), όλα τα διαθέσιμα κανάλια μεταφοράς μπορούν να χρησιμοποιηθούν για την αποδοτική μετάδοση των multicast δεδομένων στους κινητούς χρήστες / In the recent years, the usage of third generation (3G) - Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) cellular networks has begun to rise in most European countries, as in Greece. 3G networks replace the second generation mobile networks and moreover, are in position of offering advanced services to mobile users. However, the need for higher (broadband) speeds led to the further development of 3G networks and to the adoption of new technologies, with main representative the High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) technology. HSPA constitutes the evolution of UMTS and is known as 3.5G or 3G+ in order to indicate the upgrade from UMTS. However, despite the fact that HSPA technology is expected to allow the provision of numerous broadband services, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), that constitutes the authorized organization for the standardization of new mobile technologies, already examines new technologies that will prevail in the mobile communications industry over the next decades. This novel project is known as Long Term Evolution (LTE) and aims at achieving increased data rates and reduced latency compared to UMTS and HSPA networks. Simultaneously, multimedia content and service providers show an increased interest in supporting multicast data in order to effectively manage and re-use the available network resources. Additionally, more and more users require access to applications and services that until today could only be accessed by conventional wired networks. Thus, real time applications and services may face low penetration today, however, they are expected to gain high interest in future mobile networks. These applications actually reflect a modern, future way of communication among mobile users. For instance, mobile TV is expected to be a ‘killer’ application for 3G’s. One of the most significant steps towards the provision of such demanding services is the introduction of Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS). MBMS is a point-to-multipoint service in which data is transmitted from a single source entity to multiple destinations, allowing the networks resources to be shared. Actually, MBMS extends the existing UMTS infrastructure and efficiently uses network and radio resources, both in the core network and most importantly, in the air interface of UMTS, where the bottleneck is placed to a large group of users. Therefore, MBMS constitutes an efficient way to support the plethora of the emerging wireless multimedia and application services such as IP Video Conferencing and Video Streaming. In this thesis, we analytically present the multicast mode of MBMS and analyze its performance in terms of packet delivery cost under various network topologies and multicast users’ distributions. The analysis of total packet delivery cost takes into account the paging cost, the processing cost and the transmission cost at nodes and links of the topology. Furthermore, for the evaluation of the scheme, we consider different transport channels for the transmission of the multicast data over the Iub and Uu interfaces of the UMTS architecture. The analysis reveals that depending on the current network conditions (user population, user distribution, etc.), all the available transport channels could be used for the efficient delivery of multicast data to mobile users.

Η παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία έχει ως αντικείμενο τη μελέτη τεχνικών αντιμετώπισης θορύβων και παρεμβολών σε αστικό περιβάλλον κυτταρικής κινητής τηλεφωνίας τρίτης γενιάς. Ξεκινώντας γίνεται αναφορά στις κινητές επικοινωνίες, την ιστορική τους διαδρομή, από τα πρώτα τους βήματα τη δεκαετία του 1940 εως τη σημερινή 4η γενιά και τη ραγδαία άνθισή τους τις τελευταίες δεκαετίες. Περιγράφεται αναλυτικά η κυτταρική ιδέα ανάπτυξης των τηλεπικοινωνιακών συστημάτων, οι βασικές αρχές της και τα τεχνικά χαρακτηριστικά της καθώς και τα διεθνή πρότυπα από τα οποία ορίζεται. Ακολουθεί η αναλυτική περιγραφή του συστήματος UMTS, το οποίο δίνει το στίγμα της κυτταρικής κινητής τηλεφωνίας 3ης γενιάς, ενώ το τρίτο κεφάλαιο πραγματεύεται την ασύρματη μετάδοση σε ανοιχτό χώρο, τα μοντέλα διάδοσης και τους διάφορους παράγοντες που μπορεί να επηρεάσουν ένα ασύρματο κανάλι. Ο θόρυβος και οι παρεμβολές ορίζονται και περιγράφονται διεξοδικά στο τέταρτο κεφάλαιο.Στο πέμπτο κεφάλαιο αναπτύσσονται οι τεχνικές αντιμετώπισής τους και στη συνέχεια ακοιλουθεί η περιγραφή μιας συγκεκριμένης τοπολογίας. / The objective of this work is the study of the different reduction techniques for Noise and Interference in 3G cellular mobile telecommunication systems at an urban environment.First a reference is made in mobile communications, their historic journey and their rapid evolution in recent decades.An analytical specification of the cellular concept of development, the technical characteristics and the international standards is made.Follows the description of the umts,the wireless transmission in an environment, the diffusion model and factors that may affect a wireless channel.The noise and interference are defined and described.Chapter five describes the reduction methods,at chapter six a specific topology is described and at last there are some conclusions.

This dissertation aims to evaluate the allocation of essential facilities and / or scarce resources in the telecommunication industry in terms of the abuse of dominance provisions under the Competition Act 98 of 1998. Chapter 1 sets the scene by setting out the history of competition law in South Africa, and the policy considerations that lead to the promulgation of the Competition Act 98 of 1998 in its current form. This is followed by a brief examination of the scope, purpose and application of the Act, including the conduct regulated by the Act. Chapter 1 explores the functions of the Competition Authority in South Africa, and the various enforcement bodies created under the Act. In order to provide context, and to introduce the telecommunication industry, the dissertation briefly discusses concurrent jurisdiction between the Competition Authority and the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (ICASA). Chapter 1 concludes with a description of radio frequency spectrum; and sets out the scope of the dissertation. Chapter 2 sets out the market definition for radio frequency spectrum, which is defined broadly as the national product market for radio frequency spectrum. The dissertation is limited to the telecommunication industry, thus the market definition is defined only within the context of this industry. After setting out the market definition and identifying the key players in the market for radio frequency spectrum in the telecommunication industry, the dissertation proceeds to discuss the abuse of dominance provisions under the Competition Act, the essential facilities doctrine and scarce resources under the Act. This discussion includes a description of how the doctrine of essential facilities was introduced into our law, a discussion of the relevant case law and a comparative approach of the status in the European Union and the USA. The concept of abuse of dominance and its application in South Africa, the European Union and the USA is described. In conclusion, Chapter 3 compares essential facilities and scarce resources. It is submitted that radio frequency spectrum is a scarce resource and should be dealt with under the abuse of dominance provisions of the Competition Act. Chapter 4 analyses the allocation of radio frequency spectrum in South Africa. It describes the Regulatory Authority and the empowering provisions under the Electronic Communications Act, under which ICASA is empowered to allocate radio frequency spectrum, including the recent policy directions of the Department of Communication. A discussion of the various competition issues that could influence the allocation of radio frequency spectrum follows, specifically with regard to the recent policy directions of the Department of Communications. A brief summary of the views of some of the main industry players in South Africa on the policy directions sets out the concerns of the industry in general, and their reaction to the policy directions. In the concluding Chapter, it is submitted that the abuse of dominance provisions of the Competition Act should be applicable to the allocation of radio frequency spectrum. The reason for this statement is that ICASA often obtains a de facto dominant position with regard to the allocation of an essential facility and / or a scarce resource, such as radio frequency spectrum. Thus it is submitted that the regulator is in a position of dominance which allows it to use regulation as a tool to act anti-competitively. The final Chapter concludes that a wider interpretation of the abuse of dominance provisions is necessary to ensure fair and efficient allocation of radio frequency spectrum. A brief discussion of the policy directions suggests that although, on the face of it, the directions are in line with the provisions of the Competition Act, the method of allocation has scope for anti-competitive allocation by a de facto dominant regulatory authority. It is submitted that more attention must be paid to the actual methods of allocation of radio frequency spectrum, and that a fine balance is required to ensure that spectrum allocation is transparent and efficient. In closing, the dissertation mentions the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill (Government Gazette No. 35525 18 July 2012), which aims to introduce a Spectrum Management Agency to oversee the allocation of radio frequency spectrum in the future. / Dissertation LLM --University of Pretoria, 2014 / am2014 / Mercantile Law / Unrestricted