Next Generation Wireless Applications: Creating Mobile Applications in a Web 2.0 and Mobile 2.0 World, 2nd Edition

2.3 A CONCENTRIC NETWORKS APPROACH

In order to introduce how we can proceed further in understanding next generation mobile applications, we need to find a useful starting point. To enable the delivery of mobile services to consumers, we need a network of some kind, plus some software applications that interact usefully across the network. Part of that network will obviously be wireless, but what might the entire network look like from end to end? When describing the big picture of mobile services, I have found it useful to use a model of concentric networks, as shown in Figure 2.2.

The entire ecosystem shown in Figure 2.2 is what I refer to throughout this book as the mobile ecosystem. This is in contradistinction to the actual radio frequency (RF) network (sometimes also referred to as the cellular or mobile network¹). All of the various technologies found in Figure 2.1 could be plotted somewhere on Figure 2.2 (I dare not try).

There are five parts to the network, and these parts form the structure for discussing technologies throughout most of the book, including a discussion in the following chapter on how to make money in mobile services, the answer to which depends on where on the diagram you want to focus your business endeavours. All of our technological discussions will be relevant to activities that take place within these networks, so let's introduce the networks.

2.3.1 Social Network

At the centre of the network is the social network. When I first wrote this book back ...