Abstract The impact of technology has been rapidly changing the economy and environment in these past two decades. Both manufacturing and service companies which intend to maintain the viability of their organizations have to adapt in such an environment. For a long time, services have been perceived as being technologically backward and to take little initiative with respect to innovate. In general services were presumed to be laggards in adopting new technology, and to be largely passive adopter of major innovations; however, it was recognized that there are some exceptionally dynamic services – such as telecommunications. Service sector firms play important roles in innovation, not the least in the creative use and diffusion of technologies; but also serve as important sources and agents for the transfer of technological and organizational knowledge to all sectors. In innovation, knowledge plays a big role in gaining competitive advantage. There is a more fundamental need to understand how organizations create new knowledge in order to produce new products or services. Hence, the need – organizational knowledge – is growing in this turbulent economy of accelerated technological change. To create knowledge in an organization usually lies in an individual’s knowledge. This is called as tacit knowledge and is a significant point to innovate. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) had pointed out that an individual knowledge gets articulated and amplified into and throughout the organization. Moreover, there is a one way to bring about continuous innovation is to look outside and into the future, anticipating changes in the market, technology, competition, or product. The service sectors have been innovating gradually in Indonesia and Taiwan, particular in telecommunications after liberalized. In 2002, the Indonesia’s economy grew 3.66 percent from the previous year which the highest growth occurring in the transportation and communication sectors by 7.83 percent. In addition, the telecoms sector in Taiwan will contribute 63.1 billion new Taiwan dollars (1.9 billion US dollars) to Taiwan’s GDP annually over the next five years when the telecommunication market is fully liberalized. In this study will discuss about the innovation of cellular telecommunication services in Indonesia and Taiwan. By analyzing the service innovation process in MMS and Video Streaming from Indosat and Chunghwa, to figure out: 1. Where the new innovation concept comes from; 2. How they define theirs customer interface; and 3. How they develop theirs employees’ skills to deliver service. We also examine the linking between the company background and innovation. This could be their establishment time, objectives, macro economy point of view, and so on. It might be crucial points to encourage them to innovate. Key Words: service innovation, telecommunications service, innovation process / The impact of technology has been rapidly changing the economy and environment in these past two decades. Both manufacturing and service companies which intend to maintain the viability of their organizations have to adapt in such an environment. For a long time, services have been perceived as being technologically backward and to take little initiative with respect to innovate. In general services were presumed to be laggards in adopting new technology, and to be largely passive adopter of major innovations; however, it was recognized that there are some exceptionally dynamic services – such as telecommunications. Service sector firms play important roles in innovation, not the least in the creative use and diffusion of technologies; but also serve as important sources and agents for the transfer of technological and organizational knowledge to all sectors. In innovation, knowledge plays a big role in gaining competitive advantage. There is a more fundamental need to understand how organizations create new knowledge in order to produce new products or services. Hence, the need – organizational knowledge – is growing in this turbulent economy of accelerated technological change. To create knowledge in an organization usually lies in an individual’s knowledge. This is called as tacit knowledge and is a significant point to innovate. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) had pointed out that an individual knowledge gets articulated and amplified into and throughout the organization. Moreover, there is a one way to bring about continuous innovation is to look outside and into the future, anticipating changes in the market, technology, competition, or product. The service sectors have been innovating gradually in Indonesia and Taiwan, particular in telecommunications after liberalized. In 2002, the Indonesia’s economy grew 3.66 percent from the previous year which the highest growth occurring in the transportation and communication sectors by 7.83 percent. In addition, the telecoms sector in Taiwan will contribute 63.1 billion new Taiwan dollars (1.9 billion US dollars) to Taiwan’s GDP annually over the next five years when the telecommunication market is fully liberalized. In this study will discuss about the innovation of cellular telecommunication services in Indonesia and Taiwan. By analyzing the service innovation process in MMS and Video Streaming from Indosat and Chunghwa, to figure out: 1. Where the new innovation concept comes from; 2. How they define theirs customer interface; and 3. How they develop theirs employees’ skills to deliver service. We also examine the linking between the company background and innovation. This could be their establishment time, objectives, macro economy point of view, and so on. It might be crucial points to encourage them to innovate. Key Words: service innovation, telecommunications service, innovation process

[pt] A quantização eficiente dos coeficientes do filtro de síntese utilizado em codificadores de voz CELP (Code Excited Linear Prediction) é fundamental para o bom desempenho desta classe de codificadores, especialmente quando se considera a operação em taxas inferiores a 8 Kbps. Neste trabalho são examinados três quantizadores vetoriais distintos que apresentam bom potencial para utilização em codificadores que operem a baixas taxas de bits. Cada um desses quantizadores foi implementado dentro da estrutura do codificador VSELP (Vector Sum Excited Linear Prediction) uma variação importante do codificador CELP padronizada para uso na telefonia celular digital americana. Estas três técnicas de quantização vetorial dos coeficientes do filtro baseiam-se na representação LSP e são comparadas em termos da robustez aos erros no canal de transmissão, da complexidade computacional de implementação e, principalmente, da qualidade da voz sintetizada (avaliada em função de medidas objetivas de razão sinal ruído ponderada e de testes de escuta informais). Também é examinada a aplicação da técnica de Simulated Annealing para associação de índices aos níveis de saída dos quantizadores, visando diminuir a sua sensibilidade aos erros no canal de transmissão. / [en] Efficent quantization of synthesis filter coefficients on CELP (Code Excited Linear Prediction) coders is very important for a good performance of this class of coders, specially when operating below 8 Kbps. Three vector quantizers with good potential for utilization on low rate coders are studied. Each of them was implemented inside the structure of VSELP( Vector Sum Linear Prediction) coder, an important menber in the class of CELP coders: VSELP is the north American cellular Communication standard. These three vector quantizers work with LSP parameters and are compared considering the robustness to channel errors, complexity and quality of sythesized speech. The quality of synthesized speech is evaluated considering objective measures of frequency weighted signal to noise ratio and subjective results obtained from informal listening tests. In order to improve the robustness to channel errors, the problem of binary indices assignment to the output levels of the quantizer is also investigated. The technique used to determine good indices assignments is Simulated Annealing

[pt] O objetivo desta dissertação é propor um sistema de mineração de dados completo para a solução de problemas de retenção de clientes, presentes nas mais variadas indústrias. Tal solução reside na correta identificação, em meio a gigantescas bases de dados, dos clientes cujos perfis e históricos de comportamento denotam que sua saída da empresa é iminente. Agindo então sobre a inteligência gerada a partir desta classificação de clientes, incentivos e ações de retenção devem ser postos em prática para evitar e/ou minimizar a perda para algum concorrente de clientes valiosos. Ao longo do processo de mineração de dados, deu-se atenção ao processo de preparação e representação dos dados e métodos de seleção de variáveis, na tentativa de melhorar e otimizar o desempenho dos modelos a serem estudados. Vários modelos diferentes foram testados, otimizados e comparados na tarefa de classificação de clientes como aqueles que permanecerão na empresa ou aqueles que apresentam riscos de abandono. Entre os modelos estudados estão: redes neurais, sistemas neuro-fuzzy hierárquicos, algoritmos genéticos, árvores de decisão e máquinas de vetor de suporte. Em particular, avaliou-se a questão do abandono de clientes (churn) na indústria de telecomunicações móvel brasileira, devido à disponibilidade de dados reais para a análise. Foi feito um estudo abrangente do problema do churn, identificando suas causas, conseqüências e detalhes. Conclui-se com uma análise do impacto da implementação da metodologia proposta em ações de retenção de clientes, sob o prisma da lucratividade ou corte de despesas em que tal utilização implicaria. / [en] The goal of this work is to propose a complete data mining system for the solution of customer retention problems, commonly found in many industries. Such a solution encompasses the accurate identification among huge amounts of data of those consumers who would most likely end their relationship with the firm, based on their historical behavior and individual profile. Acting upon the intelligence provided by a precise customer classification, incentives and retention actions should be put into practice to prevent or minimize the losses of valuable clients to competitors. Throughout the data mining process designed here, great care was given to the preparation and representation of the data and to input selection methods, in an effort to optimize the performance of the classification models. Various different classification techniques have been tested, with the objective of finding the one best suited for the task at hand: to pinpoint those customers who present clear risks of abandoning the analyzed company. Among the studied models were neural networks, decision trees, genetic algorithms, neuro-fuzzy systems and SVMs (Support Vector Machines). As a case study, the issue of churn (loss of customer to a competitor) in the Brazilian wireless telecommunications was tackled, due to the availability of data. A detailed study was made, identifying the causes, consequences and details of the business problem. As a conclusion, the great impact of the implementation of the proposed system in retention strategies of wireless carriers is evaluated, under the view of the profitability that would be generated by its use.

[pt] Desde seu surgimento no Brasil, em 1990, os celulares apresentaram notável rapidez em sua expansão, superando os telefones fixos em 2003 e chegando a 54 milhões de linhas em meados de 2004. Esta dissertação analisa o processo de difusão da telefonia celular no Brasil e tem como objetivos (a) compreender como se deu este processo e (b) encontrar fatores econômicos, tecnológicos e decisões de negócio que possam tê- lo influenciado. O processo de difusão é baseado na teoria epidêmica de difusão de inovações e são revisados e discutidos os modelos de difusão de inovações mais utilizados na literatura. A análise dos dados se dá por meio de técnicas de regressão não lineares e lineares. Os resultados da pesquisa mostram que o processo de difusão dos celulares no Brasil pode ser adequadamente representado por um modelo epidêmico de difusão de inovações que indica que o crescimento está próximo de seu ponto de inflexão, onde inicia a desaceleração a caminho da maturidade. Finalmente, a pesquisa evidencia que a competição, os investimentos em marketing, as tarifas e a inovação foram os fatores que aceleraram a velocidade o processo de difusão da telefonia celular no Brasil. / [en] Since its appearance in Brasil, in 1990, the mobile phones showed a remarkably fast expansion, exceeding the number of fixed phones in 2003 and reaching 54 million of active subscribers in the middle of 2004. This dissertation analyses the process of diffusion of mobile telephony in Brasil and its objectives are (a) to understand how this process happened and (b) to find economic, technology or business decisions that may have influenced it. The diffusion process is based in epidemic theory of diffusion of innovations and this study analyses and discusses the most popular models of diffusion of innovations found in the literature. The data is analyzed by nonlinear and linear regression and the results of the research show that the process of diffusion of mobile phones in Brazil can be fitted in an epidemic innovation diffusion model which indicates that the growth is close to its inflexion point, where it began to slow down towards maturity. Finally, the research shows that competition, marketing expenses, tariffs and innovation were the factors that accelerated the speed of the diffusion of mobile telephony in Brasil.

[pt] Este trabalho investiga o comportamento de três métodos de alocação de canais para Sistemas Móveis Celulares quando associados a três algoritmos de controle de potência distribuídos. Os objetivos desta associação são uma maior capacidade comparada à obtida com a aplicação isolada de alocação de canais, e uma melhor distribuição da Razão Sina- Interferência, através do uso otimizado da potência de transmissão. Resultados de simulações mostram que estes dois objetivos podem ser atingidos, mas com alguns custos. / [en] This work investigates the behavior if three channel allocation schemes for Mobile Cellular Systems, when associated to three different automatic uplink power control schemes. The two objectives sought with this association are improved capacity over the isoladed use of the allocation schemes, and a better distribuition of the Signal to Interference Ratio (SRI) due to an optimized use of transmission power. Simulation results show that indeed this can be achieved, but not without some costs.

[pt] Com mais de 150 milhões de celulares em operação e uma penetração de aproximadamente 80 linhas móveis para cada 100 habitantes, o mercado brasileiro de telefonia móvel está entrando na maturidade, onde a média é de 100 aparelhos para cada 100 habitantes. Seguindo a tendência destes mercados, o processo de implantação da portabilidade numérica foi concluído em Março de 2009 e tem como metas principais reduzir barreiras de mudança, aumentar a competição no setor e estimular migrações entre operadoras. O objetivo desse trabalho é identificar os fatores que influenciam a formação da intenção de troca dos consumidores e, a partir de um modelo, comparar o mercado brasileiro ao alemão, considerado maduro. Para o estudo, uma amostra de 202 usuários foi coletada no mercado brasileiro e 200 no mercado alemão. Utilizando modelagem por equações estruturais, foi possível identificar que, em ambos os mercados a satisfação do consumidor é um antecedente com forte influência sobre o processo de formação de intenção de troca. Além disso, os resultados sugerem existir maior peso da percepção da qualidade do serviço na formação da satisfação no mercado brasileiro. Já no mercado alemão, a maior influência parece vir da percepção do valor pago pelo serviço. Os resultados dos testes de hipótese apontam maior percepção de qualidade e valor dos serviços pelos consumidores alemães, enquanto que no Brasil, os usuários ainda percebem maiores barreiras de mudança. O estudo pretende contribuir para o entendimento das relações existentes entre os construtos estudados e oferecer sugestões que possam auxiliar no desenvolvimento de estratégias pelos participantes do mercado. / [en] With more than 150 million mobile phones under operation and a penetration rate close to 80 lines per 100 inhabitants, the Brazilian mobile market is entering in the maturity, where the average rate is equal to 100 lines per 100 inhabitants. Following the trend of these markets, the introduction of the mobile number portability has been concluded in March 2009 and has as main objectives to reduce the switching barriers, increase the level of competition and encourage the switching process among the operators. The purpose of this study is to identify the elements which influence the switching intention and, based on a model, compare the Brazilian mobile market to the German one, considered already mature. For the study, a sample of 202 users was collected in the Brazilian market and 200 in the German one. Applying the Structural Equation Model (SEM), it was possible to identify, in both markets, that the customer satisfaction is a strong antecedent, with great influence in the switching intention. Moreover, the data analysis indicates that in the Brazilian market the service quality has a higher influence than in the German one. For the German users, the perceived price appear to be more important. The results from the hypotheses tests indicate that the perception of the service quality and the perceived price is higher in the German market, while the Brazilian customers still feel high switching barriers. The findings intent to contribute for the academic knowledge due to the investigation of the relationships among the constructs analyzed, and to suggest insights that can help the market players in the development of market strategies.

[pt] Este estudo identifica os atributos capazes de promover a fidelização de Clientes à operadoras de telefonia celular, com o objetivo de subsidiar profissionais do setor de telecomunicações no desenvolvimento de ofertas para seus atuais e futuros Clientes. Através da teoria da análise conjunta busca-se identificar conjuntos de atributos desejáveis e relevantes para a escolha de uma operadora de telefonia celular. A escolha dos atributos e níveis resultou de uma pesquisa qualitativa (entrevistas informais) com executivos de operadoras de telefonia celular e com cerca de 10 usuários. Em seguida, foi escolhido manualmente, a composição de estímulos (cartões) a serem aplicados aos entrevistados. Realizou-se, então, a coleta de dados por meio de questionários, os quais foram entregues pessoalmente aos entrevistados. Na última etapa, após a análise dos atributos e utilidades dos níveis propostos na pesquisa de campo, verificou-se que os atributos, design do aparelho, Qualidade de cobertura e Custo mensal apresentaram percepção e importância relativa elevada frente aos entrevistados. Propiciando que o objetivo geral de se identificarem as características relevantes para a escolha e fidelização de uma operadora de telefonia celular fosse alcançado. / [en] This research identifies the atributes to promote customer loyalty for mobile operators, in order to help them in retain its actual and future customers. It accomplishes its goal through the conjoint analysis theory. The attributes and levels choice resulted from interviews made with mobile operators executives and mobile users. The conjoint stimuli were defined following the basic principle of fractional factorial design. The partial utilities of the attributes levels show that equipment design, coverage quality and monthly cost presented a high perception and relative importance, which in turn, are recommended for customer loyalty.

[pt] A telefonia celular no Brasil representa um segmento de notável sucesso comercial nos últimos anos, apresentando um crescimento muito rápido e uma penetração que superou em muito as melhores expectativas das próprias operadoras. Parte importante deste sucesso é devido à adoção da telefonia celular pelas camadas de menor renda da população. Considerando este contexto, esta pesquisa tem como objetivo estudar os impactos da telefonia celular para este segmento, levantando as motivações para uso do serviço, os impactos no dia-a-dia dos usuários e o processo de aprendizado e uso dos serviços disponíveis. A pesquisa foi feita por intermédio de entrevistas em profundidade com usuários de baixa renda familiar per capita. Como resultado, notamos que a telefonia celular contribuiu para uma melhoria na qualidade de vida, pelas oportunidades de relacionamento social e inserção no mercado de trabalho. Por outro lado, nota-se uma oportunidade em potencializar o uso do telefone celular entre os usuários de baixa renda, simplificando seu uso e divulgando as vantagens dos serviços disponíveis. / [en] During the last years, mobile telecommunication has been a segment with remarkable commercial success in Brazil, presenting a fast user base growth and a market penetration that exceeded the best expectations from the own operators. A significant part of this success is due to the adoption of cell phone by lower income users. Considering this context, this research aims to study the impacts of mobile telecommunication for this specific segment, by depicting the motivations for its usage, the impacts on user´s daily life and how they learned and use available services. Based on extensive interviews with lower median family income users, the research indicates that the cell phone can help improve life quality, through social integration and greater work opportunities. On the other hand, we can note an opportunity to improve cell phone usage among lower income users, by simplifying and divulgating the benefits of existing services.

In the context of world economies transitioning to services, telecommunications services are the primary means of communication between different economic entities and are therefore essential. The focus on the end consumer, the convergence with the Internet, the separation between the software and the hardware implementing a service, and the telecommunications market deregulation have led to a revolution and a new era in the telecommunications industry. To meet these challenges, former national telecommunications providers have to reduce the construction time, from months to days, while affecting non-negatively other parameters (e.g., cost, quality of service, quality of experience) of new telecommunications services. To tackle this broad theme, we propose a telecommunications service construction process, the software tools that are to be used in this process and a tool building process to build them. The telecommunications service construction process reflects current practices in the telecommunications industry. As such, it should be (easily) accepted by practitioners. The software tools (i.e., Domain Specific Modeling Languages designed as profiles of an Enterprise Architecture Modeling Language, graphical editors, code generators, Off the Shelf network simulators, a collaboration Design Rationale Domain Specific Modeling Language) help telecommunications providers face the challenges. The tool building process relies on models and provides a high automation degree, hence software tools can be build more rapidly. We illustrate the telecommunications service construction process and the tools using a multimedia conferencing service. Our proposals contribute to reducing the construction time of new telecommunications services, while providing the possibility of improved quality of service and increased involvement of the consumer. Faster provisioning of new telecommunications services, that better answer the consumers¿ needs, will increase the rate of development of new economic services in general, and will ultimately have a positive impact on world economic development.

[pt] A dissertação apresenta três ensaios econômicos onde a abordagem de opções reais faz-se mister seja na definição de políticas regulatórias, estratégias de investimentos ou apreçamento de risco soberano. O primeiro ensaio, toma como premissa a nova regulação orientada a custos da interconexão de redes de telecomunicações e propõe ajustes no cálculo da remuneração de capital da telefonia fixa local. O modelo proposto estabelece o mark-up sobre o custo médio ponderado do capital (WACC) a ser aplicado nos novos contratos de concessão, levando-se em conta a opção de acesso disponibilizada pela operadora de STFC aos entrantes. O ensaio inova ao incorporar ao modelo de opções o impacto de mudanças de paradigmas tecnológicos que ocasionam saltos negativos na demanda da concessionária. Os resultados apontam para robustez do mark-up em relação a alterações nos parâmetros básicos do modelo (tráfego fixo- fixo, fixo-móvel e choques negativos de demanda), e apontam para um mark-up inferior a 1%. O segundo ensaio analisa estratégias de investimentos em incorporação imobiliária, setor que envolve baixa liquidez, lento payback, e apresenta diversas incertezas econômicas relacionadas à demanda de mercado, preço por metro quadrado e custo do terreno. O ensaio analisa estratégias de lançamentos simultâneos e seqüenciais de empreendimentos imobiliários; o primeiro envolvendo um menor custo de construção, associado, porém, a uma maior incerteza nos resultados. O lançamento seqüencial apresenta características semelhantes a opções reais por embutir uma série de oportunidades quanto à aquisição de informações, adiamento e abandono do projeto. Apresenta-se o estudo de caso de uma incorporação na cidade do Rio de Janeiro, identificando-se a estratégia ótima bem como o preço máximo a ser pago pelo terreno. O lançamento seqüencial agrega valor adicional de 10% ao projeto além de diminuir a exposição ao risco do incorporador em mais de metade se comparado à metodologia tradicional de fluxo de caixa descontado. Finalmente, o terceiro ensaio recai sobre risco soberano e propõe um modelo estrutural a partir da teoria de opções e ativos contingentes para analisar a estrutura a termo de quatro países emergentes (Brasil, México, Rússia e Turquia) que representaram, em média, 54 % do índice EMBIG do JPMorgan no período de 2000-2005. A taxa de câmbio real, modelada como um processo de difusão simples, é considerada como indicativa de default. O modelo calibrado indica que no período, o mercado sistematicamente sub-apreçou os títulos do Brasil em 100 pontos base na média, enquanto para México, Rússia e Turquia apreçou corretamente os spreads soberanos. O ensaio fornece ainda a probabilidade implícita de default do emissor, variável fundamental para o apreçamento dos derivativos de crédito, mercado que cresceu vertiginosamente após a crise da Ásia e Rússia, passando de US$ 180 bilhões de dólares em 1996 para um valor esperado de US$ 20 trilhões ao final de 2006. Este mercado é reconhecido como responsável por conter os efeitos contágios e manter a estabilidade no mercado financeiro em crises recentes como a da WorldCom, Parmalat, Enron entre outros. / [en] The dissertation presents three economic essays examining situations where the real options approach can be useful in the definition of regulatory policies, investment strategies and pricing of sovereign risk. The first essay considers the new regulation oriented to interconnection costs of telecommunications networks and proposes adjustments in calculating the return on capital invested in local fixed telephone service. The proposed model establishes the mark- up on the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) to be applied to new concession contracts, taking into account the access option provided by the fixed operator to entrants. The essay innovates by incorporating to the options model the impact of changes in technological paradigms that cause the concessionaire´s demand to fall. The results indicate the robustness of the mark-up in relation to alterations in the model´s basic parameters (fixed-fixed and fixed-mobile traffic and negative demand shocks), and mark-up was estimated to be under 1%. The second essay analyzes investment strategies in real estate development, a sector that involves low liquidity, slow payback and various economic uncertainties related to market demand, price per square meter and land cost. The essay analyzes strategies for simultaneous and sequential launch of real estate projects. The first involves lower construction cost, but comes associated with more uncertain results. Sequential launch presents characteristics similar to real options because it has a series of built-in opportunities regarding the acquisition of information and delay or abandonment of the project. We present a case study of a development in the city of Rio de Janeiro, identifying the optimal strategy and the maximum land cost. Sequential launch aggregates 10% extra value to the undertaking, besides reducing the developer´s risk exposure by over half in comparison with the traditional discounted cash flow method. Finally, the third essay examines sovereign risk and proposes a model from the theory of options and contingent assets to analyze the term structure of four emerging countries (Brazil, Mexico, Russia and Turkey) that together represented on average 54% of JPMorgan´s EMBIG index in the 2000-2005 period. The real exchange rate, modeled as a simple diffusion process, is considered as indicative of default. The calibrated model indicates that in the period studied, the market systematically underpriced Brazilian bonds by an average of 100 basis points, while for Mexico, Russia and Turkey it fairly priced the sovereign debt. The essay also provides the implicit probability of the issuer´s default, a fundamental variable for pricing credit derivatives, a market that has grown at a dizzying pace since the Asian and Russian crises, rising from US$ 180 billion in 1996 to an expected value of US$ 20 trillion at the end of 2006. This market is recognized as being responsible for containing the contagious effects and maintaining the stability of the financial market in recent crises, such as the corporate meltdowns of WorldCom, Parmalat and Enron, among others.