Mobile Telecommunications Research Articles

Brand Image and Consumer Decision Making in the Mobile Telecommunication Sector, Case Study of Tecno Mobile Ltd, Rwanda

Brand Image and Consumer Decision Making in the Mobile Telecommunication Sector, Case Study of Tecno Mobile Ltd, Rwanda

Exploring Factors Affecting User Satisfaction in myIM3: Integrating TAM, UTAUT, and the Information Systems Success Model in Mobile Telecommunication Services

Exploring Factors Affecting User Satisfaction in myIM3: Integrating TAM, UTAUT, and the Information Systems Success Model in Mobile Telecommunication Services

Emergency communications after earthquake reveal social network backbone of important ties.

Social networks provide a basis for collective resilience to disasters. Combining the quasi-experimental context of a major earthquake in Ya'an, China, with anonymized mobile telecommunications records regarding 91,839 Ya'an residents, we use initial bursts of postdisaster communications (e.g. choice of alter, order of calls, and latency) to reveal the "important ties" that form the social network backbone. We find that only 26.8% of important ties activated during the earthquake were the strongest ties during normal times. Many important ties were hitherto latent and weak, only to become persistent and strong after the earthquake. We show that which ties activated during a sudden disaster are best predicted by the interaction of embeddedness and tie strength. Moreover, a backbone of important ties alone (without the inclusion of weak ties ordinarily seen as important to bridge communities) is sufficient to generate a hierarchical structure of social networks that connect a disaster zone's disparate communities.

The Use of the Mobile Phone for Real-Time Notifications of Public Health Threats in Three Mali Health Districts between 2020-2021

The Ministry in charge of Health in Mali has decided to involve the community in the fight against public health threats using mobile phones according to WHO guidelines. In this regard, a guide and standard tools for community-based electronic surveillance have been developed and tested in a pilot phase in the Kadiolo health district. After the training of the actors (community health workers “ASC”, health workers and epidemiological surveillance officers), all were equipped with telephony and data collection tools. To this end, CHWs send a coded message to health centers and districts every day. Then these messages are confirmed or invalidated by health workers through an investigation and the taking of samples for transport to the lab. The number of cases notified by CHWs via the electronic system was 1397 cases in 444 days, with 170 cases of illnesses and 1227 cases of events. This electronic early warning system enabled the notification of cases in less than 24 hours at the higher level. Also, the completeness of sending messages by district varied between [71 and 83%] and the cumulative average completeness of the three districts was around 77%. On average 72% of CHWs sent at least one message with a notification of 3.14 cases of illnesses and events per day. Mobile telephone is a suitable and less expensive means for the notification of diseases and events in real time. Keywords: Community health workers, Events, Diseases, Real-time notification, Mobile telephony, Community-based electronic surveillance.

Customer Perceptions on E-service Quality and Customer Loyalty in Botswana Telecommunications Sector

The study examined the effect of electronic service quality on customer loyalty with specific reference to the telecommunications sector of Botswana. In this context, the study focused on the players in the mobile telecommunications sector of Botswana, that is, BTC, Mascom and Orange Botswana. The study adopted a quantitative survey that was guided by the positivist research philosophy. The study sample comprised of 450 subscribers of mobile telecommunication services in Botswana who took part in an online survey undertaken through a structured questionnaire. The analysis of research data was done using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences in which multiple linear regression analysis was adopted as the method of data analysis. The study found that the efficiency of e-services had a significant positive effect on customer loyalty of mobile telecommunication service subscribers in Botswana (β = 0.751, p = 0.000<0.05). It was also found that there existed a significant direct relationship between fulfilment and customer loyalty of mobile telecommunication service subscribers in Botswana (R = 0.519, p = 0.000<0.05). The study further found that there existed a significant positive relationship between service availability and customer loyalty of mobile telecommunication service subscribers in Botswana (β = 0.638, p = 0.000<0.05). The study concluded that efficiency, fulfilment, and service availability had a significant positive effect in customer loyalty in the telecommunications sector of Botswana. The study recommended the improvement of service efficiency; mitigating regular transaction timeouts; enhancing customer knowledge management and customer relationship management; undertaking of gap analysis and conducting of quality circles. Keywords: Customer loyalty, Customer satisfaction, Electronic Service Quality, Efficiency, Fulfilment, service availability.

Is digitalization a booster for economic growth in Africa? Short run and long run evidence from Tanzania

The least developed countries (LDCs) must experience faster economic growth rates if they are to catch up to the industrialized nations. A key factor in advancing economic growth and development in the digital age are information and communication technologies (ICT). We use time series data from 1994 to 2021 and use an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) technique to estimate the effects of ICT on GDP growth for Tanzania, the world's most populous country located entirely south of the equator. We establish a causal relationship between ICT infrastructure/access and GDP growth in Tanzania, accounting for both short-run and long-run dynamics. In particular, mobile telephone subscription growth exhibits a significant impact on economic growth in both the short and the long run in Tanzania. This suggests that, at early stages of digitalization, adoption of mobile telecommunications gives a boost to economic growth, as early adapters tend to be very effective users. However, diminishing marginal returns appear to result, as other production factors may not fully absorb technological advancements.

Co-Channel Compatibility Analysis of IMT Networks and Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcasting in the Frequency Range 470-694 MHz Based on Monte Carlo Simulation.

According to Resolution 235 adopted during the World Radiocommunication Conference 2015 (WRC-15) and the preliminary agenda item 1.5 of WRC-2023, the International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) has been entrusted to carry out sharing and compatibility studies between broadcasting and mobile services in the frequency range 470-694 MHz in Region 1. This study specifically focuses on evaluating electromagnetic compatibility in potential co-channel sharing scenarios between Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcasting (DTTB) and International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) systems within the 470-694 MHz frequency band that may arise in the foreseeable future. To assess the conditions for coexistence, a Monte Carlo simulation method implemented through the SEAMCAT software version 5.4.2 is employed, examining six potential interference scenarios. The simulation results yield the minimum coordination distance required between IMT and DTTB services in the 470-694 MHz band based on the protection criteria to ensure harmonious coexistence while maintaining satisfactory performance. Furthermore, the study investigates the impact of various factors such as transmitter power, antenna heights, coverage radius, antenna discrimination, and antenna tilt angle on the separation distances. The focus lies primarily on critical interference scenarios across neighboring countries' borders. The simulation outcomes confirm that sharing the same frequency band between IMT and DTTB networks would result in significant mutual interference. Nevertheless, carefully analyzing diverse parameters and assumptions helped provide recommendations to reduce the required separation distances. These findings are valuable for broadcasters, mobile operators, and regulators in establishing the technical coexistence conditions for DTTB and IMT in the new band.

Relationship between Customer Satisfaction and Brand Loyalty

Globally, customer satisfaction remains a major predictor of brand loyalty and customer satisfaction in the telecommunication industry. Regardless of this, mobile telecommunication firms in Kenya are yet to achieve the required brand loyalty levels. This is evident given the high levels of switching freedom and churn rate levels, which rose from 21.20% to 31.45% in Safaricom, while in Airtel, this rose from 4.9% to 6.0% in 2021. Studies on the relationship between customer satisfaction and brand loyalty revealed both positive and negative results. The main purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. The study hinged on the theory of planned behaviour. The research used descriptive research design. The target population was 124,849 subscribers drawn from four telecoms: Safaricom, Airtel, Telecom and Equitel. The stratified sampling technique was used to select a representative sample of 443 respondents. The primary data for the study was collected using a closed-ended survey instrument. Quantitative data was analyzed using both descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (Correlation and Regression). The findings indicated that there is a positive and significant relationship between customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, where customer satisfaction explained 50.9% of the variance in mobile telecommunication service providers' brand loyalty. The study concludes that customer satisfaction has a significant effect on brand loyalty. The study recommended that the telecom management should put more effort into service promptness, responsiveness, staff courtesy and customer understanding to enhance brand loyalty in their companies.

Impact of Mobile Telecommunication Access on Porters' Living Standard: A Study based on Street Porters in Kathmandu City

This paper examines how telecommunication access has affected the living standard of street porters and what are their mobile telecom service usage. The study used income, expenditure, saving, and factors affecting these variables to assess the change in living standard of street porters. The study used descriptive and explorative research design with a before-after approach. Primary data obtained from 440 street porters using purposive random sampling method was used. Both telephone questionnaire and interview schedule consisting comprehensive 54 items were administered. The tools of analysis used were descriptive statistics and inferential parametric (t- test, paired t- test) and non-parametric statistics (McNemar test). The study found that street porters use voice service mainly to talk to family and to take load orders. More than half of the sample (56%) were found to use less than 5 minutes call per day on average with 5 to 10 call counts for load per day. The study also found that mobile communication access has increased the income per day, expenditure per day and monthly saving of street porters. Further, the study also found mobile communication has enhanced the income generating factors like efficiency of street porters, bargaining power, market exploration and reduction in travel and search cost. Based on the analysis of income and expenditure, the study concluded that mobile communication access has improved the living standard of street porters.

Respecifying social change: the obsolescence of practices and the transience of technology.

This article proposes that social change, a fundamental topic in sociological theory, can be productively revisited by attending to studies in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EM/CA). We argue that the corpus of EM/CA research, from the 1960s until the present day, provides details of the constitutive and identifying aspects of practices and activities that gradually transform into descriptions of obsolescent practices and activities, and that this corpus can be revisited to learn about the ways people used to do things. Taking landline and mobile telephony as a case in point, we show that the subtle details of conversational practices are anchored in the technology used as part of the contemporary lifeworld, and that they stand for the particularities of routine social structures of their time period. We also discuss the temporal aspects of the competences required on the part of members and analysts to make sense of encountered practices in terms of their ordinary recognizability and interactional consequentiality, pointing to the anchoring of social life in its historical time. Finally, we conclude by considering different ways of respecifying social change by attending to various kinds of historicity and obsolescence of social praxis.

Simulating the specific absorption rates in different human tissues at 4G frequencies for mobile phones

Employing electromagnetic waves in mobile communication networks has increased the level of human exposure to electromagnetic fields that may result in concerns about health hazards associated involves the soaking up of cellular phone electromagnetic energy. The human body is penetrated by the electromagnetic fields that emit from a cell phone. The specific absorption rate (SAR) that is generated in the human head and body layers usually expresses the thermal effect on human tissue. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the thermal effects of the electromagnetic field induced inside the human head and body through the construction of a simplified model for both. The RF-source and human body models are built by using the ANSYS high-frequency structural simulator (HFSS). A planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) will use to assign SAR values to different body tissues for the fourth generation (4G) of mobile phone communication at an operational frequency of 2.6 GHz and power radiated of 125 mW. The model is simulated and analyzed to evaluate the SAR induced at different human tissues depending on the source-to-antenna distance and its generated values must not exceed the safe limits for harmful thermal effects.

The Effect of E-CRM on Customer Delight “An Applied Study on Mobile Telecommunication Companies in Mansoura City”

The Effect of E-CRM on Customer Delight “An Applied Study on Mobile Telecommunication Companies in Mansoura City”

The role of RS and GIS in Mobile Telecommunication Network Planning and Simulation

The role of RS and GIS in Mobile Telecommunication Network Planning and Simulation

The impact of mobile virtual network operators on the mobile telecommunications services market: The case of the Czech Republic

Mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) offer mobile telecommunications services by purchasing capacity from mobile network operators (MNOs) and competing on the retail market. This study examines national data to identify possible impacts of MVNOs on the mobile market and on mobile service users. While open wholesale markets for MVNOs are relatively widespread in European countries, evidence of their impact on end users is limited due to a lack of previous research. This study uses data from the market entry of MVNOs in the Czech Republic in 2013 to estimate the impact on end users. Based on synthetic control methods, the results clearly show that the market entry of MVNOs led to a decrease in the price of calls and to a decrease in the average monthly revenue per user (ARPU) of operators. However, no significant effect on the price of data or on consumption was found. These results have some implications for policy and for the mobile industry.

Customer perceptions of mobile telecommunication providers in determining satisfaction and loyalty: focusing on college students

The increased demand for mobile services drives increasingly fierce competition among mobile telecommunications providers in Indonesia. New promotional strategies are needed, and companies are advised to determine the target group of customers to collect objective and adequate information regarding their real needs, such as college students. Therefore, this study examines college students' perceptions of adopting mobile telecommunication provider services in Indonesia. This study especially explains the effects of customer perceptions regarding service quality, price fairness, and brand image on satisfaction that leads to customer loyalty. A total sample of 208 customers of the mobile telecommunication providers in Java Island were randomly selected for the study, and the data collected was analyzed with CB-SEM. The empirical results revealed a positive significant impact of customer perceptions of service quality, price fairness, and brand image on customer satisfaction. College students’ perception of price fairness has the largest significant positive influence on customer satisfaction and loyalty. The mediation mechanism analysis also confirms that customer satisfaction partially mediates between customer perceptions of service quality and brand image. This study suggests that mobile telecommunication providers in Indonesia develop superior pricing strategies to increase customer satisfaction, leading to customer loyalty.Customer Perception

Competitive effects of mergers and of spectrum divestment remedies in mobile telecommunication markets

Motivated by recent mergers in mobile telecommunications markets, this paper investigates the merger induced effects on consumer surplus in a setting where: (i) the industry is modeled as a triopoly in which firms sell products that are both horizontally and vertically differentiated; (ii) the merging parties are able to pool their spectrum assets; and (iii) the joint management of pooled spectrum assets enables merging parties to offer a better quality service, for which customers are willing to pay more. From a merger policy perspective, our contribution is two-fold. First, we conclude that mergers may benefit consumers even in the absence of any cost-related efficiencies and establish under which circumstances this is more likely to occur. Second, our results also indicate that when the merger has a negative impact on consumer surplus, remedies based on reallocation of spectrum are not very likely to change this outcome. The reason is that the circumstances under which the merger is unlikely to benefit consumers are precisely those under which spectrum reallocation will be unable to fix merger-induced anticompetitive effects.

MOTIVATION OF EMPLOYEES IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR THROUGH ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION CASE STUDY: VALA MOBILE COMPANY, KOSOVO

The aim of this study is to reveal the role of internal organizational communication in motivating employees in public service organizations. Data were collected from 249 surveyed employees, in the mobile telecommunications sector in Kosovo, specifically in the Vala mobile company. The collected data was analyzed by using the SPSS system. The study found that information sharing had the greatest effect on employee motivation, followed by employee involvement in decision-making. This paper can be useful for managers and heads to create an organizational culture that promotes both motivation and performance. This paper is unique as it examines the links between organizational communication, motivation, and performance.

The Relationship between Relationship Marketing and Brand Loyalty in Mobile Telecom Service Providers: Case of Nairobi County, Kenya

Relationship marketing remains a major predictor of brand loyalty in the telecommunication industry. Regardless of this, mobile telecommunication firms in Kenya are yet to achieve required brand loyalty levels. This is evident given high levels of switching freedom and churn rate levels which rose from 21.20% to 31.45% in Safaricom, while in Airtel, this rose from 4.9% to 6.0% in 2021. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of relationship marketing on brand loyalty in mobile telecommunication service providers in Kenya. The study was hinged relationship marketing theory and descriptive research design. Target population was 124,849 subscribers drawn from four telecoms; Safaricom, Airtel, Telecom and Equitel. Stratified sampling technique was used to select a representative sample of 443 respondents. The primary data for the study was collected using a closed ended survey instrument. The study adopted Cronbach’s metrics of alpha to determine the internal consistency of the instrument while its validity was assessed by supervisors. Quantitative data was analyzed using both descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (Correlation and Regression). The findings indicated that there is a positive and significant relationship between relationship marketing and brand loyalty, where relationship marketing explained 60.1% of the variance in mobile telecommunication service providers brand loyalty. The study concludes that relationship marketing has a significant effect on brand loyalty. The telecos management should put more effort on human interactions and activities, enhanced Collaborative Perspective, aligned and empowerment employee and value co-creation behaviors in order to advance relationship marketing Keywords: Relationship Marketing, Brand Loyalty

The Relationship between Relationship Marketing and Brand Loyalty in Mobile Telecom Service Providers: Case of Nairobi County, Kenya

The Relationship between Relationship Marketing and Brand Loyalty in Mobile Telecom Service Providers: Case of Nairobi County, Kenya

Strategic Partnerships and Organizational Performance of Broadcasters in Kenya

The performance of broadcasters has struggled with the economic implications of the digital disruption, the mobile telephony and the advent of social media compelling managers to rethink and recalibrate their strategies while radio and television stations have shut down their operations in the recent times in Kenya. The overall objective of the study was to determine the influence of strategic partnerships on the organizational performance of broadcasters in Kenya. The study was underpinned by the Igor Ansoff’s theory and resource based view theory. A correlation and descriptive research design was adopted. The target population comprised of 239 radio and TV station mangers drawn from 167 radio and 72 television stations. Simple random sampling was applied. The sample size of the study was 179 respondents. Results revealed a strong significant relationship between strategic partnerships and operational performance (r=0.667; P<0.000). Study concludes: strategic partnership has got a significant influence on organizational performance.