Introduction

This chapter focuses upon the “new” parts of the telecommunications sectoral system of innovation. This means that we concentrate on analyzing innovation in fixed data communications (including the Internet) and mobile telecommunications (including the mobile Internet). We largely disregard, for example, traditional telecommunications – i.e. equipment for fixed telecommunications systems and fixed telecommunications voice services. Rather, we concentrate on what is emerging and growing – i.e. how the SSI is currently changing and how previously independent systems are converging.

We address both equipment production (material goods) and the production (provision) of intangible service products. This is because innovations in manufacturing and in services are complementary – in both directions: service innovations are dependent upon manufacturing innovations and vice versa. It is hard to imagine a mobile phone call without a mobile handset, and vice versa. And the Internet is useless without content. Such a combined approach, addressing the production of goods and services alike, is unusual.

Equipment production includes routers and other kinds of exchanges for the Internet as well as base stations, exchanges and handsets for mobile telecommunications. It might be noted that such equipment is currently constituted not only by hardware but also by software, to a very large extent. Equipment producers such as Cisco and Ericsson employ thousands of software engineers and might therefore be labeled giant software firms.

The provision of Internet service products is often said to be accounted for by so-called Internet service providers (ISPs).