The mobile commerce technologies: Generations, standards and protocols

Mobile Commerce has staged a remarkable come-back. Driven by the technological innovations in the field of telecommunications, it is showing signs of a healthy recovery. The collapse of the dot-com boom in 2001/2002 had dealt a severe blow not only to Electronic Commerce but also to Mobile Commerce, which was just about developing at that time. In addition to a general lack of customer demand for mobile, location-based, services, it suffered heavily under the technical deficiencies of end-devices, slow data transmission and unripe technological standards. These factors in turn had a negative impact on the customer acceptance of mobile services and whatever little demand was available, was rendered useless. Many of the environmental conditions have changed since then. Technology innovations have reduced many barriers to acceptance. Increasing globalization has led to more mobility and therefore to greater demand for mobile, ubiquitios services that can be consumed anytime, anywher. This paper examines different telecommunication technologies regarding their suitablilty and deficiencies. It provides an overview over the historical development of mobile technologies while pointing towards the expected future scenario.