The mobile
communication service providers have been using different digital mobile
communication standards. As a result, the market has been
geographically fragmented by the deployment of one of the two dominant
families of standards, (i) the Global System for
Mobile communication (GSM), or (ii) the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA).
Such fragmentation persisted in both second and third generation networks.
However, the last few years have witnessed an unprecedented change in this
pattern - major service providers have committed to a single standard known as
Long Term Evolution (LTE). Within a very short period of time
LTE has emerged as the fourth generation network choice for almost all
providers.
This research study
examines the phenomenon of the decisive convergence to a single mobile
communication standard using a multi-level longitudinal case study of the LTE
standard to explore the context, process and content of change associated with
all relevant events and the stakeholders involved in them. The research
produces a set of constructs that can be used to describe the
convergence to LTE as well as applied to other similar phenomena in emerging
information and communications technology open standards. The key contributions of the research are: i)
validating a methodology that was previously used to study the adoption of an
open standard to involve the phenomenon of technology convergence, ii) develop
a set of constructs describing the evolution of LTE by taking into account the
convergence phenomena, iii) provide insights that are relevant to top
management teams of firms willing to engage in the development and adoption of
emerging open standards in order to align their competitive and product
development strategies.