Services

There are three basic services offered by cellular systems; voice, messaging and data. Advanced services such as voice mail and paging are often bundled into a basic service program.

Voice

The most well known application for wireless communications is voice communications. Voice communication can be telephony; wide area (cellular), business location (wireless office) or home cordless (residential) or voice paging, dispatch ( fleet coordination) or group voice (audio broadcasting). Service rates for voice applications typically involve an initial connection charge, basic monthly minimum fee, more likely a monthly access fee that includes some free airtime minutes, plus an airtime usage charge. When the customer uses service in a system other than their home registered system (roaming), there may be a daily roaming fee and/or a higher per minute roaming usage fee.

Figure 1.8 shows a sample service rate plan for mobile telephone voice services. This example shows that there is usually a fee to activate service (connection charge), a recurring monthly charge ($29.95 per month), a bundled amount of peak and off-peak minutes (500 peak, 2000 off-peak), a fee for usage of airtime minutes in excess of the subscribed amount ($0.40 per minute), and a higher-usage fee when operating (roaming) in other systems ($0.90). This rate plan also shows that advanced services may be offered for free (to increase the number of minutes used).

Figure 1.8: Typical Mobile Telephone Voice Service Rate Plan

Some mobile telephone systems are now offering dispatch push to talk (PTT) services. Dispatch services provide the user with the ability a single user to simultaneously communicate with many members in a group (group call). The billing rates for dispatch services usually involve a reduced per minute rate for each subscriber that is connected to a group call.

Messaging

Messaging services for mobile telephones involve the sending or receiving of short messages. Messaging services are commonly limited to approximately 160 characters per message. The cost of messaging service usually involves a specific cost per message when the number of messages exceeds a certain number of messages.

Data Service

Data service involves the transfer of data to or from the mobile telephone. 2nd and 3rd generation cellular and PCS systems offer higher speed data services (100 kbps to 2 Mbps). These data services may include circuit switched data or packet switched data. Packet data services such as general packet radio service (GPRS) are more efficient than circuit switched services and have become the most popular type of data service.

When using circuit switched data, the user typically pays only for the air-time used. Circuit switched data transfer rates on analog and 2nd generation digital systems are usually limited to about 14.4 kbps. For continuous data transmission of over 30 seconds, this results in a cost of less than 1 cent per kilobyte of data transferred. For very short burst of data transmission, circuit switched data can cost over $1 per kilobyte ($1000 per megabyte) of data because the call setup time is much longer than the data transmission and most cellular systems charge a minimum of 1 minute fee per call.

In 1996, cellular packet services started to be offered on cellular systems. The service charges for packet data commonly include a monthly minimum charge and a usage fee that is based on the number of packets or the amount of kilobytes of user information that is transferred. The typical usage charge for packet data services ranged from approximately 1 cent to 20 cents per kilobyte ($1 to $20 per megabyte).

Web Access

In the early 2000s, most mobile devices came equipped with software that allowed the user to access information services through the Internet. Because of the limitations of the screen size (small), screen type (mono- chrome), and control ability (no mouse), web access has generally been limited to specifically designed web sites.

The cost of web access usually involves a monthly subscription fee of approximately $3 and it may involve a usage fee for the amount of information transferred.

Software Downloads

Intelligent mobile telephones have the capability of running small programs and these programs are made available to the user as a software download. Examples of these software downloads include games , screen savers, and ringer tones. To purchase and obtain these programs, the user browses through a list of available downloads and selects to purchase the software. These software downloads are generally inexpensive (less than $10.00) and may be time limited (e.g. a game that can be used for 2 months). The mobile telephone service provider usually splits the fees for the software programs with the developer of the software.