Conclusions

In the future, mobile phones and other handheld devices may fulfill the predictions of becoming a substitute to the wired Internet and adding real value by offering new services anywhere , at anytime . Today, curiosity rather than competitive advantage still drives consumer use of mobile services. Consumers have tried many services but only once or twice. The overall perceived MSQ has not been compelling enough to induce increased usage and the question remains to be answered whether new handsets and more advanced services will change that. Although the line between laptops, phones and PDA's is becoming thinner, high prices will keep the masses away. New top-of-the-line devices from Sony and Hewlett-Packard, with built-in keyboard and Wi-Fi, cost about the same as a laptop (Wildstrom, 1993c). Therefore, services that can be accessed through the mobile phone will be important for all those who need such services when on the move. Furthermore, in less developed countries , where PC usage is still low, the mobile phone may provide consumers with their only access to Internet-based services. For example, sub-Saharan Africa is the fastest growing market for mobile phones and Vodacom's CEO Knott-Craig predicts that 'the cell phone will be Africa's PC' (Reinhardt, 2004, p. 19).

Regardless of the device, consumers will expect high quality services for the money, time and other efforts they expend to receive the service. Our study provides a framework for evaluating this quality. We believe that the presented service quality dimensions are valid also for consumer evaluation of services that can be accessed through other mobile devices, although the level of quality will improve with new technology, and consumer evaluations are likely to become more detailed. However, many problems that exist today are likely to prevail, such as expensive models that are not within everyone's reach, size restrictions and, for example, smart phones being awkward voice communicators . The competitiveness of mobile services in the future will depend on how useful they are and how similar the service experience is compared to the wired Internet.

Present phones are designed for talking and not for reading or writing. Thus, not surprisingly, small displays were perceived as a major hindrance for using m-services . Color displays are more pleasing to look at but still small. According to the experts, service developers are very much aware of consumer desires but cannot yet provide solutions. Investing in a PDA or a smart phone might help but not solve all the problems. Configuration of a PDA is no easier than for a phone, and Web pages do not display well on the small screen (http://www.analysys.com, 2003). In addition, these devices have been plagued by other problems, such as low battery life and a lack other desired services, such as SMS capability (c.f., Wildstrom, 2003b).

Based on our study of mobile phones, only services that offer unique content will be successful. Mobile services are seldom perceived as a convenient option, because of the low quality content, difficult navigation and inconvenient interaction, compared with other service channels. Broken links and pricey services add to consumers' frustration. They desire service content that meets their needs, a reliable service that is easy to interact with and has an aesthetic outlook. The service has to be valuable to the consumer at a particular moment, when on the move, when the phone is the first choice of channel to access the service.

The proposed MSQ dimensions are likely to vary in importance depending on the service and the situation in which it is used. The respondents in this study belonged to the first wave of adopters who are interested in technology (Nokia, 2001). For example, although ease of navigation was an important dimension in our study, it is likely to become even more important for the next wave of adopters, who are less experienced .

The ten MSQ dimensions are similar to those presented by Zeithaml et al. (2000) for e- SQ. This is not surprising, since the consumers were familiar with the wired Internet and used e-services as a comparison standard for m-services. The similarities validate our findings, but more research is clearly needed to confirm the validity of the dimensions for other mobile devices. The wired Internet has become a standard that consumers use as a comparison standard to evaluate small, handheld devices.

We believe that the proposed MSQ dimensions will apply to other small devices as well. However, the importance of dimensions may vary also for different devices and new dimensions may need to be added. For example, 'customer care' as proposed by Srinivasan et al. (2001) did not emerge in the present study but could become essential if m-shopping takes off. It could also emerge as an important dimension for customer relationship management (CRM) programs when mobile devices are used as a CRM tool. The present study is evidently limited by being conducted in 2002 when there were few users of mobile services, scarce availability of these services, and few companies used the mobile channel to offer value-added services to customers.

When m-services have been adopted by a larger number of consumers, extensive studies should be conducted on the dimensionality of MSQ. Based on past studies of e-services (van Riel et al., 2001, 2003; Wolfinbarger and Gilly, 2003), it is conceivable that many of the now presented dimensions could be reduced to a smaller number of dimensions. One such dimension could be m-service usability.

Other conceptualizations of services might also be successfully applied to m-services. They could, for example, be categorized according to their value as core or auxiliary services to consumers (c.f., Gr nroos, 2000; van Riel et al., 2001). For traditional service providers, m-services could provide consumers with auxiliary, value-added services, such as alerting them to special deals or new services, or warning them of service delays.

Past experience, media reports and perceived service alternatives were found to influence consumers' m-service expectations. In the future, alternatives will increase. Currently, services that can be accessed through mobile phones compete with the wired Internet, self-service technologies (automates), and traditional face-to-face, or voice-to-voice services. Consumers associate the mobile Internet with surfing the Web on a desktop computer, an experience that the phone cannot match. Thus few respondents had a driving need to use the m-services that are on offer today, although consumers at large express a high interest in trying out new mobile services (Eriksson, Hyv nen, Raija & Tinnil , 2001). The technology is under constant development but both the technology and services still appear to suffer from hype and entertainment value rather than really useful services. According to Halper (2004, p. 44), mobile operators have now 'banned the term WAP from their marketing pitches and press releases,' instead focusing on the services and ease of use.

The current study was limited to the conceptualization of consumer perceived quality of services that can be accessed on a mobile phone. Although we propose that the MSQ dimensions will apply to other mobile devices, it is also evident that the development of new technology will increasingly affect consumer expectations and perceptions of mservices. Particularly the development of Wi-Fi technology may challenge consumer use of mobile phone services based on 3G, or 4G networks.

3G networks have arrived, but have not yet revolutionized the market as predicted (Boston, 2003). In Japan NTT DoCoMo expects 3G services to cover 99% of the populated areas by spring 2004 (DoCoMo: Japan's Wireless Pioneer, 2004), but most other countries lag far behind. According to Lovejoy (2003), 3G started out as the solution in search of a problem, ignoring the fact that technology is adopted only if it provides a solution to a real world problem. 3G networks are spreading, but the technology is perceived as less reliable than 2G and the phones have tended to be bulky with a poor battery life (Clifford, Reinhardt & Capell, 2003). In addition, the Wireless World Research Forum, consisting of manufacturers of handsets and networks, are already developing new 4G networks to replace 3G (Boston, 2003). According to the same report, the first network will be launched in 2010, offering services at 100 mbps, or 50 times faster than 3G. This leaves little time for the telephone operators to recupe their losses from the delayed 3G networks and the high fees that many paid for licenses.

The latest 'hype,' multi media messaging services (MMS), has even been seen as a way for operators and phone makers to mask the slow development of the real 'mobile Internet,' but also as a way to cover the expenses of the delayed 3G networks (Hamilo, 2003). New hybrid products, such as game phones with Bluetooth technology and camera phones were marketed as 'must have' products in 2003. Sales of camera phones in the USA were expected to hit 5 million in 2003, and then rise to an incredible 48.5 million in by 2006 (Crocket & Reinhardt, 2003). However, the sales of Nokia's game phone fell short of company expectations - due to the lack of compelling games - and the price of the game phone was substantially reduced in March 2004.

Companies, such as real estate agents , and private consumers are slowly adopting MMS photo services in their daily lives, a costly service compared to sending pictures through the wired Internet. First, holiday post cards were replaced by SMS messages, now MMS messages may be taking over. The German operator T-mobile launched its MMS service across all markets in mid-2002 and, according to a press release, 15 million MMS messages were sent in 2003. However, consumers have been found to be price conscious, as predicted by market research. For example, an early Finnish study revealed that general consumer interest in MMS was low (Marski, 2001). The study found that 72% perceived the feature 'you could take photos with your mobile phone and send them to your friends like a text message' as of no interest or somewhat interesting, but not worth paying for. Twenty-three percent were prepared to pay something, and only six percent were prepared to pay 'good money' for it. High price sensitivity was proved when Norwegian operators raised the price of an MMS in December 2003 and the average number of messages sent per day declined from 74,000 to 48,000. Future interest in camera phones may also be hampered by the real or feared misuse of them, which already has led to unanticipated consequences. Thus, Switzerland has put legal restriction on taking photographs in public with a phone, companies who fear industry espionage collect all phones from their visitors , and schools , as well as some American gyms, have forbidden the use of camera phones on their premises.

In their pursuit of profitable services, companies are reportedly also offering more 'pink content' services (Clifford et al., 2003; Giussani, 2003), i.e., pornographic material, which consumers are demonstrably ready to pay for. The proliferation of such services may, however, have a disastrous effect on consumer attitudes towards mobile services, particularly considering how many children have mobile phones. At the launch of a service which makes it possible to charge a mobile phone with cash, the leading newspaper in Finland pointed out that its main potential use may be to access pornographic material through a phone, which is otherwise blocked to access to certain numbers (Raeste, 2004). In the absence of interesting mobile content services for a broader public, consumers may well find the wired Internet more attractive.

Nonetheless, the potential market for mobile services worldwide is enormous . In Finland, the number of phones with MMS capability are expected to rocket from 100,000 in 2002 to 1,300,000 in 2004 (Ministry of Traffic and Communication, 2003). The value of the MMS market is expected to increase accordingly , from non-existent to 3.5 million Euros. Similar effects can be expected in other countries. Now is the time to design the compelling services that will grab consumers and keep them loyal.

In order to succeed, m-service providers also need to emphasize the benefits of the phone compared to other handheld devices and laptops. 3G services partly compete with Wi- Fi (wireless Ethernet, WLAN) technology, which many laptops and PDA's are now equipped with. However, Wi-Fi cannot yet be compared with the mobile phone in convenience for consumers when on the move. Forrester predicts that 53 million laptops and PDA's in Europe will be equipped with Wi-Fi by 2008, but that only 7.7 million will bother to use it (Miller, 2003). For those who have broadband, it is easy to connect a radio transmitter to it and start using the Internet while sitting in the garden. Companies have also installed Wi-Fi for internal use. However, when moving about in the city consumers will find it hard to access the Net. The spread of Wi-Fi is still limited in Europe compared to the United States and, because its range today is at maximum a few hundred meters , it is not likely to replace 2G or 3G nets (Hamilo, 2003). Consumer access to Wi-Fi is also restricted to which company operates the hot spot. In Sweden Telia has a monopoly on the market, whereas in Finland two companies compete for the best spots (Huhtanen, 2004). This is also the case in the U.S., where consumers may have to buy access to, for example, both T-Mobile to BTopenworld when moving from one hot spot coffee shop to another (Lovejoy, 2003). In the same report, Lovejoy notes the lack of signposts for hot spots and, for example, how badly informed airport personnel are ('Hot what?'). From April 2004 the airline Lufthansa will offer Wi-Fi services on transatlantic flights for flat fees of 10$ or 30$, depending on the length of the flight (Rothman, 2004). Other airlines will reportedly follow suit.

In addition, net operators are struggling to make a profit on Wi-Fi nets, since consumers are not willing to pay enough for the services (Miller, 2003). It is particularly costly for travelers, and not only on airlines. For example, though Wi-Fi is fairly widespread in Helsinki - the capital of Finland - a contract is needed with a local operator before the Net can be accessed. A password that lasts for a day can be bought at hotels but typically costs up to 20$ (Hamilo, 2003). Adding to the cost is the inconvenience of moving from one hot spot to another, since they are often in different networks and require different passwords (Wildstrom, 2003a). According to a representative of TeliaSonera (Huhtanen, 2004), their Wi-Fi customers consist mainly of salespersons that move about with laptops, which normal consumers do not have. Hence, Wi-Fi is convenient for working with a laptop in one spot but not yet for moving about with a handheld.

Although the speed of Wi-Fi surpasses that of 3G, using a mobile phone or phone-based PDA is still the most convenient way of accessing the Internet outside the Wi-Fi hotspots and when on the move (Wildstrom, 2003a). In addition, mobile phones are widespread, whereas not everyone owns a laptop or palm computer, and those that do, seldom carry a laptop around like they do their phone. Despite current deficiencies, smart phones are also a growing market. Sales were expected to reach 13.1 million units in 2003 and 81 million by 2007 (Edvards, 2003). Nokia dominates the segment with 61% of the market, followed by Sony Eriksson (10%) and Motorola (6%). By combining 'traditional organizer functions with the ability to surf the Internet, talk, play games, and take pictures' they are making PDA's obsolete (Edvards, 2003, p. 70). Consumers do not want to carry around a number of different devices, if one device can do all the work.

On the other hand, new technologies are constantly being developed and tried out (c.f., Chen, 2004; Yang, 2003). In the future, newer types of Wi-Fi will have much larger ranges, such as WiMax that extends to 30 miles (Edvards, 2004). Other, already existing technologies are less sophisticated. For example, FM signals not used by radio stations are used for one-way transmission of weather and news to smart watches (Wildstrom, 2004). There is no doubt that in the future the wired and wireless technologies will converge and it will be possible to access the same Internet from anywhere, anytime. However, hitherto, neither 3G nor Wi-Fi have become mass-market services. Neither offers ubiquitous access to the Net, most 3G users are excited mainly by the color screens and polyphonic ring tones, and most Wi-Fi hot spot users tend to be 'techies' (Lovejoy, 2003). The market is still wide open for new and better alternatives.

Wi-Fi, mobile phones and the wired Internet complement each other. Consumers will choose the one that fulfils their needs best and the one which is the most convenient to use at a particular time and place. Therefore, Net operators and service providers need to maximize consumer value by offering various points of access from which consumers can choose their favorite or most convenient way of interacting with a company (Lemon et al., 2002).

In order to mitigate the effect of the wired Internet as a comparison standard, mobile services should be marketed as complementary, separate and unique services. Time- sensitive services are inherently suitable for the mobile phone. Pay services (more sophisticated than what is offered today), where the phone replaces a wallet, are also unique. Consumer expectations need to be managed properly - less marketing hype, more usability and content adapted to the mobile phone. Network operators and manufacturers of phones agree that service quality is where the focus should be - offering real benefits to consumers (Jones, 2001).

The rapid development of technology means that further studies should be carried out on consumer evaluation and conceptualization of mobile services through all available devices. The presented MSQ model should be further developed and tested on different services and devices.