Technology Standards and Competition in the Mobile Wireless Industry
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TECHNOLOGY STANDARDS AND COMPETITION IN
THE MOBILE WIRELESS INDUSTRY
Kirti Gupta*
INTRODUCTION
The last few decades have witnessed enormous changes in the mobile
wireless industry. In a blink of an eye, mobile technologies have trans-
formed the way we live, work, and stay connected, and recent decades have
been called out as the largest explosion in technological innovation since
the industrial revolution.' High speed mobile wireless communications ena-
ble today's consumers to use their mobile devices not just for voice calls,
but for internet, email, and a variety of other applications.2 It is hard to
overstate the scale of these developments.'
At the heart of this revolution lies a series of technological innovations
in wireless technology standards. For mobile wireless, this started with the
second generation (2G) digital cellular systems in the early 1990s. Signif-
icant advances were made with the introduction of third generation (3G)
mobile broadband in the early 2000s, and innovation continues today with
much faster and efficient wireless fourth (4G) and future fifth generation
(5G) systems.'
Each system builds upon a long series of technology standards.' The
core wireless cellular technologies incorporated into these technology
standards form the backbone of a growing and vibrant industry value
chain.' Higher data transmission speeds and efficient communications ena-
bled by these technologies have unleashed a range of new mobile data ser-
* Dr. Kirti Gupta is a Director of Economic Strategy at Qualcomm Inc. The views presented in
this Article are those of the author and not of any affiliation. Special thanks to Brandon Roberts for his
excellent research assistance with all of the data presented in this Article.
1 DAN STEINBOCK, THE MOBILE REVOLUTION: THE MAKING OF MOBILE SERVICES WORLDWIDE
1-4 (2005).
2 See News Release, World Economic Forum Head of Media Fon Mathuros, The Mobile Revolu-
tion Is Just Beginning (Sept. 13, 2013), http://www.weforum.org/news/mobile-revolution-just-
beginning.
3 ICT Facts and Figures: The World in 2013, INT'L TELECOMM. UNION (Feb. 2013),
http://www.itu.int/enITU-D/Statistics/Documents/facts/ICTFactsFigures2013-e.pdf.
4 For example, 3G and 4G wireless cellular technologies have reached over three billion users
globally in less than fifteen years and are likely among the most rapidly adopted consumer technologies
in history. See Ericsson Mobility Report on the Pulse of the Networked Society, ERICSSON (Nov. 2014),
http://www.ericsson.com/res/docs/2014/ericsson-mobility-report-november-2014.pdf.
5 See STEINBOCK, supra note 1, at 36-40.
6 See id.
2015]
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Technology Standards and Competition in the Mobile Wireless Industry
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