y 13.2 demonstrates, infrastructure and network planning companies' fortunes have been mixed: high demand led to large profits and high valuations in the late 1990s. As demand subsided, and as more competitors entered the market, margins and stock valuations Network Topologies, Design and Convergence Operator Optimisation Installation Network planning engineering Planning software acquisition Figure 13.17 Cell design value chain sharply declined, a trend accentuated by the general downturn in the information technology industry after the year 2000. The supply and demand have balanced and the rates charged are comparable with other professional services companies. The core competency of these com- panies has also changed over the past two decades as will be described further in this chapter. Case Study 13.2: Cell Design Companies The mid- to late 1990s witnessed a fast growth in the mobile telephony market. The suc- cess of the 2G standards such as GSM and CDMA enabled operators to offer services at competitive rates. Subsidised handsets and economic call plans led to the growth of the number of subscribers and mobile telephony traffic. As a result, a large number of new cell sites had to be rolled out in response to this increase in demand. While many incum- bent operators had a cell design division in-house, the size of this work force was not adequate for a fast roll out of new sites. At the same time deregulation of the telecommunications industry had allowed for multiple players to apply and be granted licenses to operate mobile networks. The majority of these new entrants did not have in-house expertise in designing and rolling out mobile networks. A great demand emerged for specialist companies who could design, plan, install and optimise wireless networks. A number of these companies came into existence in the mid- to late 1990s and grew significantly. Network planning jobs naturally required expert human resources as well, and RF engineers were in great demand. Many communications engineers found employme