An Illustrated Guide to Mobile Technology

Have you ever wondered how wireless communication has evolved from the clack-clack-clack of the telegraph key to the high speed wireless networks of today? Have you wanted to know the difference between 0G, 1G, 2G, 3G and 4G networks? And what exactly is a digital cellular network anyway? And why does it matter to you that your smart phone can talk to a network that is “digital” and “cellular”, and not analog and hub-and-spoke? We’ll answer all these questions in this book.

And speaking of the smart phone in your hands, if you have wanted to “get in” on the mobile apps ecosystem and build a business around selling mobile apps, I’ll show you how to do that in this book as well. In the section of consumer mobile apps, we’ll analyze the DNA of immensely successful smart phone apps. We’ll look at what it takes to make your app stand out from the crowd. I’ll also explain the revenue models that you need to know to capitalize on your’s app success.

Similarly, if you are the owner, CEO, CTO, VP or a senior decision maker, this book will help you answer three important questions: How can I use mobile technology to:

• Increase sales and improve my top line
• Improve customer satisfaction
• Improve operational efficiency and boost my bottom line

In the section on enterprise mobility, I do a deep-dive into several business segments, namely Retail, Logistics and Supply Chain, Field Service, Healthcare, Insurance, Banking and Financial Services, Hospitality, Travel and Tourism. You will learn about mobile-enabled multi-channel and orthogonal selling strategies, brand projection and augmented reality based selling techniques. You will learn how to do mobile enabled context based selling, and how to use technologies such as GPS, Beacons, VLC, etc. to drive footfalls into your store and increase the customer’s basket size. You will learn about mobile marketing and promotions systems, and how to use mobile technology to improve customer satisfaction. I will also explain how to harness the full power of mobile technology to perform delivery management, direct store delivery, warehouse management and field service. In the chapter on healthcare, I explain how mobile medical apps, consumer medical apps, and mobile technology enabled healthcare systems are bringing about a renaissance in disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment on an anytime, anywhere basis. You will also learn about member self-service apps and field service automation apps for the health insurance domain. In the chapter on banking, I will explain the concept of the “mobile bank branch”, and how SMS banking works, how mobile to mobile money transfer systems work and how digital wallet services work. In the chapter on Hospitality, I will show how you can harness mobile technology in all three phases of your customer’s travel experience, i.e. before, during and after their return from travel.

In the section on mobile technology, I dive into the technological underpinnings of mobile enabled ecosystems. This section is for you, if you have wanted to know what is FDMA, TDMA, CDMA, FDD, TDD and other curiously named wireless protocols, and why millions of people can talk on the open airwaves all at the same time without getting overheard, or why mobile spectrum is so expensive. If you are curious about what exactly lies inside your cellular phone, or how your mobile phone connects to the network and starts a call, this section will satisfy your curiosity. You will also learn about the internal workings of mobile operating systems what makes mobile OSes and processors so special, and how push notifications, mobile device management, MEAPs, mobile enabled websites or a dozen other mobile enabled eco-systems work.

And finally, in the epilogue we’ll try to peer over the horizon to see where mobile technology is headed and in doing so, I’ll touch upon ‘wearables’ and automotive mobility and the internet of things.

Table of Contents

Part I: History Of The Mobile Phone
Part II: Mobile Applications
Part III: Enterprise Mobility
Part IV: Mobile Technology