Mobile Multimedia

The German Institute for Service Quality made its decision: The mobile discounter blau.de from Hamburg is Germany's best mobile service provider. »As the only company they were under the five best as service and analysis is concerned,« the jury emphasised. »In the field of service their strength lay in internet and telephony, as well as a very good internet presence.«

Yet today cheap prices and good service aren't always enough in the fight for customers. Whilst revenue from voice transmissions is stagnating, and leaving aside the business with ring tones, interesting mobile applications are being created – from online banking, mobile TV and social networking through to what are today the still rather exotic sounding mobile motion tracking services.

Cafeteria model

Until quite recently, marketing experts were still looking for the killer application that would provide high turnover to device manufacturers from the demand for new models and increase the connection charges for network operators. The massive investments made in the UMTS standard would thus, with a bit of luck, finally pay for themselves. The industry firstly had great hopes for the »Multimedia Message Service« (MMS), in which short messages can be transmitted not only as text, but also in conjunction with images and sound. Whether other financing models (advertising) can recoup the costs of the format change and transmission expenditure is still questionable.
A pick‘n‘mix »Cafeteria Model« seems to be emerging in the mobile telephony sector: Several different added value services are being rolled out to complement voice calls and SMS services, which together still account for well over 90 per cent of revenue. Mobile phone users are choosing those services which suit their particular needs from the growing range on offer.

Apart from making normal calls, some send holiday snaps, download ring tones or games and watch TV on their mobiles. Others pay for bus or parking tickets, transact their bank business whilst underway or measure their personal state of fitness by means of sensors on sports clothing and transmit and evaluate this data via mobile telephony (Mobile Motion Tracking Services).