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m-Commerce
3 April 2000

So just when you are getting used to the idea of e-commerce, along comes m-commerce (short for mobile commerce). Forget the Internet and digital television, these are already passé. The real excitement as far as many technology observers are concerned is the mobile telephone. Now you may have the mistaken notion that one should use such a device to make a phone call. Think again. 

Imagine you are out walking in town and you suddenly feel peckish, in fact you really fancy a good, strong curry. You pull out your mobile phone, but it is not just a mobile phone, it is a 3G terminal. You tell it you are looking for the nearest Indian restaurant. It finds one with a free table and, knowing where you are, it displays a map and directions to the restaurant. It reserves the table for you and displays the menu. You are very hungry so you read the menu (without walking into a lamp-post) and place your order. Five minutes later you are at the restaurant with your meal being placed in front of you. Improbable? Maybe. Technically feasible? Absolutely.

Well. How about turning up at the airport with your holiday partner with no particular destination in mind, sitting in the executive lounge and then booking your holiday on your 3G device. This has great appeal and I was thinking of launching a business called lastsecond.com. Unfortunately that domain has already been registered to traXXX Reisen. (lastnanosecond.com is also gone. What do you think of lastmillisecond.com?) There is great potential for m-commerce in travel and, in fact, lastminute.com and Travelocity are already discussing taking part in WAP trials with BT.

What are WAP and 3G mobile devices, you are wondering? Right now, you can walk into a mobile phone shop and order a WAP phone. WAP stands for Wireless Application Protocol. It is the first of three standards that are going to move us from the digital mobile telephone of today, capable of receiving information at a lowly speed of 9.6kps (9600 bits per second) to 3G (third generation) devices capable of sucking in information at 40 times that speed, at 384kps. This is fast enough to provide video telephony, watch television, or surf the Internet. 

WAP phones allow you to interact with simple text screens, rather like surfing the Web without the pictures. Last December, Swissair rolled out a WAP phone check-in system for flights departing Zurich, jointly developed with IBM Zurich Research Laboratory. Selected frequent flyers can check-in using their phones and receive flight number, departure time, gate and seat assignment details on the phone's display. Swissair will be launching further interactive services, including confirming and re-booking flights.

By the way, if you want to get a taster of how convenient it is to receive travel data on your mobile, go to ebookers.com and try their excellent Flight Watch service. You simply key-in your mobile phone number, a flight number and date, and the system sends messages to your phone giving you the latest departure and arrival information. (This is particularly useful if you are a mini-cab driver.)

GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) which receives information three times faster than today's phones will be trialled by BT's Manx Telecom in the Isle of Man early next year. UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications Systems) which will power 3G mobile phones should be operating commercially by 2002. By 2005, BT predicts that there will be 1 billion mobile communication devices in use worldwide. They expect us to be making over 14 billion transactions on our mobiles with a value of more than £125 billion per annum.

Now, what does this all mean for the travel industry? You can imagine the betting industry, share trading and banking all thriving in the world of m-commerce but how will people use their mobiles to interact with travel, apart from checking-in for Swissair flights? The immediately exciting area is business travel. Flight and hotel arrangements often need to be changed at the last minute. To be able to log on to airline or hotel chain WAP sites wherever you happen to be and amend your reservation would be a real boon. Not surprisingly, airlines and hoteliers are taking this very seriously. There is competitive advantage (and PR) to be gained by being the first in the market with good mobile reservation facilities. 

Beyond business travel, the last minute market is ideal for this technology. You are in town and you want to take in a show? See what's available on a screen near you (your mobile screen). You are at work on a Friday and wondering whether you should take that weekend away? Just check on your mobile. 

m-commerce probably won't take off for leisure travel until 3G devices are in widespread use in about 5 years' time. These will no doubt be used for surfing the Internet. Whilst you should not expect the tiny screens to give as detailed a picture as your computer monitor, you will no longer need a PC or TV to see the latest deals or view a video of your dream holiday. You will be able to do this anytime, anywhere. But when these devices are universal, how about tour operators providing mobile facilities in resort to book excursions and car hire or contact the rep? Perhaps they would be ideal to give directions to tourists taking guided walks around cities? Maybe book your water-skiing lessons on your phone while sitting on the beach? The possibilities are endless.

With all this online time, booking the theatre or arranging your excursion to the local fiesta, you are probably worried about the cost of the phone call. There is no need to be. With GPRS and UMTS, once you have logged on to the network you are permanently connected. You are not making a phone call, so there is no call duration charge. You are sending and receiving packets of information as and when you wish. Therefore, you might be charged by the packet (rather than being charged a packet), pay a monthly subscription or just be charged for a specific service given.

m-commerce is going to be big business. Travel products, only being information at the point of sale, are going to be a big part of it. However, the one question that is worrying me is, will I still be able to make a phone call?

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