Standards, strategy and wireless network planning

Abstract

Charting the :volution and strategic direction of wireless communications networks in times of great change to maintain a competitive advantage for a wireless carrier is very complex. The new economy has created a new competitive landscape with much uncertainty that is affecting the networkplanningprocess. Several reasons account for the changes taking place in many industries' competitive landscapes. Managing standards development is a very useful tool to limit uncertainty and protect investment when developing new technologies. "There is nothing more difficult to take at hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take a lead in the introduction of a new order of things."f i e Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1 527) t is widely accepted that the developed world is in a midst of change from an industrial economy to a new information (or digital) economy that has introduced new dynamics, new rules, and new drivers for success. The new economy is all about competing for the future, the capacity to create new products or services, and the ability to transform businesses into new entities that could not be imagined yesterday and will be obsolete tomorrow [I]. Many of the themes in the new economy have either direct or indirect effects on the telecommunications industry and have created a new competitive landscape. I The New Competitive LandscapeIn the majority of industries, the fundamental nature of competition is changing [2] and the pace of this change is relentless and increasing. Even determining the boundaries of an industry has become challenging, exemplified in the convergence between computers, communication, and television (or entertainment) industry. Values that will lead a firm to strategic competitiveness in the new competitive landscape includes flexibility, speed, innovation, integration, and the challenges that evolve from constantly changing conditions [3], The conhtions of the new competitive landscape result in a perilous business world, where the investments required to compete on a global scale are enormous and the consequences of failure are severe [4, 51. Hypercompetition is a term used to capture the realities of the new competitive landscape and can be defined as [6]:"...results from the dynamics of strategic maneuvering among global and innovative combatants.It is a condition of rapidly escalating competition based on price-quality positioning, competition to create new know-how and establish first-mover advantage, competition to protect or invade established product or geographic markets, and competition based on deep pockets and the creation of even deeper pocketed alliences." Traditional approaches to strategy often collapse in the face of rapidly and unpredictably changing industry. According to [7], the strategy successful in rapidly and unpredictably changing industries is to compete on the edge. Competing on the edge defines strategy as the creation of a relentless flow of competitive advantages that, * This work was partly supported by the Internationa...