ering that the human being is roughly the same as it was thousands of years ago, and how fast can the perception of the end-user change? Other business sectors, such as the car industry, have no doubt been more successful than telecom here, although selling telecom services should not be very much different from selling a car, theoretically. Östen Mäkitalo at Telia Sonera in Sweden says that there is a need for considerably more research within this area. 'The behavioural research is lagging behind. The mobile terminal should become everyone's personal assistant. A simple use, with voice control and voice recognition, is an important interface feature. The assistant should primarily help us in common everyday tasks'. 'Life enhancement' is another way to describe this goal. Others express it like this: 'Take control over the electronic environment by using your mobile as a personal universal remote control'. Hopefully this book can shed some more light on the vast and crucial end-user area. 2.3 USER ANALYSIS AND SEGMENTATION 2.3.1 THE PRIVATE AREA ENVIRONMENT AND ITS END-USER CHARACTERISTICS AND SEGMENTS To be understandable, the basic needs should preferably be combined with a basic envi- ronment, which is separate for private people and enterprises. Understanding Changing Telecommunications - Building a Successful Telecom Business Entertainment Education Enlightenment Social relations (information) Consumption Transport Professional Figure 2.4 Potential areas for time and money savings The private and professional environment can be illustrated by means of Figure 2.4. The private sector is not homogeneous. It can be segmented in various ways, two of which will be described in more detail as examples of possible segmentations. The number of possible segmentations is virtually unlimited. Let us start with a very simple approach, which is exclusively based on the 'common life stage' segmentation. This segmentation was applied by Ericsson Australia as part of a comprehensive computer program for modern network desig