Mobile Phone Software

Over the last several years, mobile telephones have undergone a transformation from relatively simple voice-based handsets to more sophisticated multimedia communication devices used for a wide range of personal and business applications.

In order to provide this broad array of features, handsets require increasingly complex mobile phone software and firmware. The growing complexity of software, however, presents a significant challenge to mobile handset manufacturers and mobile telephone carriers: the ability to ensure that the mobile phone software is of high quality and 100% reliable. Given the volume of mobile handsets shipped – nearly 600 million units are expected to ship in 2004 – and the diverse conditions in which they are used, as mobile phone software complexity increases, the likelihood of mobile phone defects causing an operating malfunction increases.

To address the growing challenge of providing higher quality and more reliable mobile phone software, and eliminating expensive recalls, while at the same time meeting aggressive time-to-market demands, a more effective technology known as "over-the-air" (OTA) mobile phone software updating is gaining broad acceptance in the mobile telephone industry. OTA software updating enables mobile device manufacturers and carriers to remotely update the software and firmware that controls the function of the handset wirelessly. New mobile phone software that patches flaws in the software originally installed on the handset is delivered OTA, eliminating the need for the user to bring the handset to a service facility.

In addition to delivering patches to fix faulty mobile phone software and firmware, the OTA mobile phone software updating technology can be used to deliver new features and services to customers. Because this updated mobile phone software can be delivered to users without requiring them to bring their mobile device to a service facility or purchase a new handset, carriers can conveniently deliver new services to individual users' handsets, in effect "personalizing" the handset to meet the particular needs of an individual user. This has the advantage of enhancing customer loyalty and it provides opportunities for carriers to generate additional revenue per subscriber.