Abstract

Traditional voice communication services have no potential for generating enough profit and bringing the expected return on investment on the 3G infrastructures and licenses. Therefore, actors in the mobile marketplace must concentrate on new sources of revenue, i.e. next generation mobile services. However, thinking about new engagements in this rapid changing environment is a risky task. Systems have to be put into place, which allow its user to assess potential investments and support a decision. The objective is to design an investment decision support system for next generation mobile services to confront and evaluate the robustness and viability of business models in this domain. This research con-sists of market simulations and modelling and includes the definition of metrics to validate potential in-vestment and provide rationale to assist “go/no go” decisions. The first objective is to analyse the role of the key players in the mobile landscape. The second objective is to define the relationships between the actors using an ontology. When the requirement, have clearly been identified a solid cause-and-effect chain between the different actors can be designed and the result-ing business models can be assessed. Then, an evaluation of dependencies of the actors, their conver-gences or divergences, and their strategies is given. Finally, these mechanisms need to be implemented in an agent-based prototype for realising such a decision support system for the introduction of next genera-tion mobile services.