Mobile handsets now contain multimedia functionality with extremely sophisticated capability. The extent to which these capabilities will drive higher revenues, or better customer experience remains to be seen, but as handsets evolve into hardware-supported multimedia applications with intuitive user interfaces, they will open up new vistas of differentiation for operators. The new services made possible by handsets’ expanding capabilities will test mobile operators’ ability to deliver on their promises. Today’s customer wants to use high-tech services to increase productivity and personal pleasure, which means that handsets should include four key enablers:
• Multimedia messaging service (MMS),
• Application enablers, embedded virtual machines for games or tailored business applications,
• User-friendly multimedia capabilities for streaming, innovative messaging and content services,
• Geo-localization and A-GPS.
