Author: Neal Gorenflo
Graduation Year: 2000
Advisor:
Reader:
Date: 12 July 2007
Link to Thesis:
Third generation (3G) mobile communications networks promise seamless global roaming and broadband multimedia connectivity from a single end-user terminal within the next decade. Because 3G technology will combine voice and data functions in one terminal, much of the wireless industry believes that multipurpose--or convergent--mobile devices will eventually dominate the U.S. market. The personal data assistant and paging industries tend to disagree arguing that mobile devices optimized for data fill a unique consumer need, complement mobile telephone use and that many consumers will use and carry both. They envision a divergent wireless device regime--an end-user terminal market characterized by the availability of a wide range of relatively specialized wireless devices. These conflicting viewpoints raise an important set of questions. First, do current wireless consumers exhibit a bias for single or multiple wireless device ownership? Second, will a convergent or divergent wireless device regime dominate the U.S. market?
This paper argues that convergent solutions are too complex for mass market acceptance and that a divergent wireless device regime will eventually dominate. Diffusion of innovation research, ubiquitous computing theory and recent events in the computer industry that all suggest the inevitability of a divergent device regime. The crux of the research effort, however, is the analysis and comparison of average and multiple device wireless consumers using wireless consumer data from a major, nationwide survey. The recent survey data indicates that more than 35 percent of wireless users already use multiple devices, suggests that multiple device ownership has the same mass market appeal as single device ownership and clearly indicates that a majority of multiple and single device users prefer their paging, mobile phone and PDA functions in separate devices.