1. Mobile Internet and its impact on Interconnection
Robert Shaw and Tim Kelly,
International Telecommunication Union, Fixed-Mobile Interconnection Workshop,
Geneva, September 2000
The views expressed in this presentation are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the ITU or its membership. The authors can be contacted at and 1

2. Input from Bob …

3. Mobile Internet Applications
Person-to-person (communications) services
Mobile office (business) services
Mobile E-commerce services
Travel/location based services
Entertainment/leisure/music services
Telemetry (machine-to-machine) services
Wire-less access to Internet from fixed locations, esp. in developing countries

4. Relative price differences, 20 hours per month, mobile & Internet
$584.18
$442.75
Internet use
Mobile use
$281.35
$87.29
$23.72
$23.48
$15.79
$8.88
France
Germany
Malaysia
Mexico
Note: ISP charge includes off-peak call charge plus ISP charge. Mobile includes subscription plus peak and off-peak call charges. Source: ITU World Telecom Indicators Database.

5. Mobile Internet dilemmas
In the Internet world:
Access is generally unmetered, flat-rate
is perceived to be a “free” application
Content providers gain revenue principally through advertising or subscription
In the mobile world:
Access is generally metered, per-minute
Voice mail and messaging are charged by air-time
Content providers share airtime revenues
In a mobile Internet world:
Which business model takes precedence?
Who does the billing?
How are interconnect revenues split?