Purpose Objective of this paper to evaluate mobile services on a limited set of characteristics, e.g. usage context, the Innovativeness of the service, efforts required of users for using the service, the usefulness of the service and the likelihood with which it will be used, in order to show that distinction between services is highly relevant for adoption and acceptance research. Design/method/approach In this research the mobile services are object of study and therefore an exploratory approach making use of Q-sort methodology is used. Findings The characteristics of the 48 services under study play an important role when judged on the five dimensions. Advanced services, explicitly exploiting the mobile nature of the services like navigation and localization, embedded in all kind of task and process related activities, stood out as the most innovative services, however these are the least likely to be used because they are expected to fit day-to-day routines and usage context the least. Easy to use services and services that fit most contexts are most likely to be used. Practical implications Designers of mobile services and applications have to be aware of the subtle interplay between usage context, the service or application to be designed, the ease of use. Only when all these factors are taken into account the services may have value to users. Original value This is one of the very few studies focused on mobile services, instead of user perception and behavior. In most research on mobile service adoption and acceptance the characteristics of services are threatened as a black box. This paper shows how relevant it is to look into characteristics of mobile services themselves.@en

To enable rich communication services, mobile operators are developing various IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)-based technologies for they fear that their present voice and SMS business will soon be substituted by newer IP-based services from Internet companies. They reason that since the new rich communication services -- such as enhanced presence, group communication and seamless switching between devices and media types within the same communication session -- provide secure and more reliable services than those offered by Internet companies --Skype, What Sapp and Google, for instance-- consumers will readily appreciate their values and consequently use them. To validate these claims, this paper analyzes the results of a conjoint survey among 82 respondents in Netherlands, France and Spain, examines if users are really willing to adopt these rich communication services and, if so, whether or not issues like reliability and security impact their decision to do so. Results indicate that while users are most interested in "presence" features of rich communication services, they hardly appreciate other services like "switching devices" and "media during communication sessions", "file sharing" and "group communication". Still, for any of these services, reliability, security and interoperability are valued as important requirements. These findings contribute to theoretical debate on platform competition.@en

The importance of loyalty in service industries is widely recognized, and previous studies show consumer trust and perceived costs affect loyalty. The interplay of costs, trust and loyalty has also been shown for the telecommunications industry, but the recent smartphone revolution challenges existing theorizing. As consumers with smartphones collect and share more data including location information, increasing privacy and security risks make consumer trust even more important. Moreover, consumers with smartphones spend less on voice calling and text messages since they switch to over-the-top services, which changes the relationship that consumers have with their mobile operator. This paper studies the impact of perceived costs and trust in operators on the loyalty that consumers express towards their operator. We analyse a representative sample of 549 Dutch consumers, of which 25% own a smartphone. The effect of trust on loyalty is significant and consistent across smartphone owners and non-owners. Perceived costs have an indirect effect on loyalty, mediated by trust, but this indirect effect is fully moderated by smartphone ownership. Practical implication is that maintaining consumers’ trust continues to be important to retain their loyalty, and especially smartphone owners should be offered tariffs that consumers consider fair.@en

Literature on Mobile Platforms focuses predominantly on strategic issues in managing multi-sided platforms as well as economic issues of two-sided markets. Most of this literature is highly conceptual and empirical research on the perceptions, preferences and behaviour of consumers is lacking. Moreover, scholars typically focus on device-related platforms like operating systems and app stores, while platforms developed by mobile operators are seldom discussed explicitly. In this paper, we therefore aim to understand the criteria and expectations of consumers to opt for a specific platform from a device manufacturer or operator. To do so, we developed and executed a questionnaire for conjoint analysis. The data for the conjoint analysis was collected from 88 Chinese researchers and students. The conjoint results show that most respondents strongly prefer mobile operating systems provided by Apple (iOS) and Google (Android) over Nokia (Symbian) and BlackBerry OS. Moreover, application cost is considered to play an important role in the decision making of consumers to opt a platform. The findings of the study indicate that respondents hardly find the provider of the platform important, i.e. they prefer service provider and device provider platforms over operator platforms.@en

In this report we discuss the experimental set up, methodology and results of a laboratory experiment carried out within the scope of the Celtic-Comesi project. The experiment aims to get user feedback on the user experience and technical functionality of two prototype applications developed in the project: Content anywhere and Social communication on TV. The experiment was carried out in Delft in September 2011. Test subjects were 53 students from Delft University of Technology. The experiment shows that the technology still needs to be developed further, especially regarding the stability of the user clients and servers. Furthermore, the user interface design requires further attention for both applications as test subjects required a lot of help to utilize the applications. A more intuitive interface is necessary will the Comesi applications live up to the positive expectations of the subjects. Data extracted from the experiment show that the Comesi features in the applications were generally considered useful. Especially presence and availability features were considered to be even more useful after testing the applications. Respondents became more positive about the usefulness of Comesi features after they tried out the applications, which underline the relevance of prototyping and user testing. On the other hand, user willingness to pay is low, and users would rather adopt the services from web companies than from operators. However, the reader should be aware that the subjects are students with low budgets, and that Dutch people are very critical about pricing in general. Operators looking to roll out the Comesi services should invest in user trust as this the only construct that significantly impacts user decision to adopt services from operators rather than from web companies. The experiment results also indicate that the Content anywhere application was evaluated much more positively than the Social communication on TV application. Key issues that affect the user¿s intention to adopt the applications include the perceived usefulness, ease of use and to a lesser extent, trust in the operators. A number of subjects indicated that they would really like the TV application, assuming that the technical errors that did occurred during the experiment, would be mended. The TV application in a sense was a new experience for many of them. Convergence of television and telecom technology clearly can strengthen Telcos¿ position towards web companies. Letting users experience the applications does add value, as their perception on specific Comesi functions like presence on TV and availability features on the phone and web increase after they try out applications. Moreover, subjects clearly indicated that they would have liked to explore the functionalities in more detail. The results are partly confirming, partly conflicting with the findings of the earlier conjoint analysis in WP7D2. While switching media and switching devices was hardly found useful in the conjoint analysis, these features score rather high in this experiment, not only after trying out the applications but even beforehand. A possible explanation might be the nature of the group of subjects: employees of telecom operators and ICT experts dominated the conjoint sample, while students are subject in this experiment.@en

This report provides the first step in testing the end-user interest for the service concepts developed in the Comesi project. In the project, five use cases on converged communication services have been defined. However, their added value has not yet been tested with actual prospective consumers. In this deliverable, we examine if users are really willing to adopt Comesi types of services and, if so, whether or not issues like reliability and security impact their decision to do so. We test user interest in Comesi service features using conjoint analysis. Conjoint analysis is a sophisticated, non-obtrusive way of measuring the utility of various dimensions and characteristics of service concepts, and is especially popular in marketing and product design. The basic idea is to present people with contrived hypothetical situations. These situations, scenarios, vignettes, or cases are developed by combining characteristics of situations that will play a role in the decision making process for instance in adopting, using or paying for a service. As a first step in this deliverable, we derive five core service features from the Comesi use cases: ¿ File sharing ¿ Switching devices during a communication session ¿ Switching media during a communication session ¿ Group communication ¿ Presence / availability We construct eight use scenarios (conjoint cards) based on these five elements, which are subsequently rated on relevant criteria by respondents. The conjoint survey was filled out 82 respondents in Netherlands, France and Spain. Results indicate that while users are highly interested in ¿presence¿ features, they hardly appreciate other service elements like ¿switching devices¿ and ¿media during communication sessions¿, ¿file sharing¿ and ¿group communication¿. Still, for any of these services, reliability, security and interoperability are valued as important requirements. On the positive side, about 2/3 of the respondents expects to use the services within one year, while they are willing to pay, on average, 2 Euros per month. More research is needed to analyze whether a viable business case can be made based on these numbers. Besides the conjoint questions that give insight in the usefulness of each individual Comesi service feature, we also asked respondents to indicate their interest in the service features assuming that they are bundled. We find that respondents do not see the added value of bundled Comesi service features. As a limitation of the study, it should be kept in mind that the sample is not representative for any population. The focus of this research was to look into the services attributes that play a role in the assessment of the service on a number of criteria amongst other likelihood to use and willingness to pay. The focus in this study was directly on the characteristics of the service, it did result in relevant insights, but there is a clear need to understand behavior in context. The fact that the fit in day-to-day routines did lead to some significant differences between the sub-samples is an indication that we have to be aware of local and national idiosyncrasies. Also the fact that sharing characteristics are not as dominated as would have been expected, raise the question if direct situations shouldn¿t have a more prominent place in research in to adoption and use of new mobile services.@en

This report provides details of the roadmap for the user tests that were conducted in Delft, 23 ¿ 29 September 2011. The experiment aims to get user feedback on the user experience and technical functionality of two prototype applications developed in the project: Content anywhere and Social communication on TV. A total of 62 students participated in the experiments and tested both applications, 9 of which were removed from the sample due to technological problems that occurred during the experiment. This document only displays the 53 students of which we used the data. The subjects were between 19 and 32 year with 66% between 21 and 25 years old. Male dominate the sample: 73%. Half of the sample is Dutch, the other half exist of students who comes from China, India, South America, and other European countries. Students mainly use smart phones (84%).@en