3G telecommunication operators’ challenges and roles: A perspective of mobile commerce value chain

In recent years, in the wake of the bottleneck facing the e-commerce development, mobile commerce is another type of service many expect to utilize and develop. In the past, influenced by the bandwidth limitation, the promotion of mobile commerce was not successful. Now, the 3G technology has broken through the limitation, allowing a higher transmission rate and more complex e-commerce interactions. The mobile commerce value chain is then formed. On this value chain, 3G telecommunication operators are the most crucial members. Moreover, mobile commerce value chain is essentially the aggregation of the conventional mobile communication value chain and Internet value chain. The business models and value chains of the conventional mobile communication and the Internet may not completely apply. Thus, a further investigation into the roles that 3G telecommunication operators play on the mobile commerce value chain is indeed necessary. As a result, based on the value chain, this study attempts to investigate the present and future challenges for 3G telecommunication operators and their advantages, to outline the roles they may play in the future development of mobile commerce.