No idea whether this was posted to the newbies board--Good article on the state of things, with lots of references to Q, 3G and Wireless Knowledge.
WWW Unplugged
by Amara D. Angelica
A few years ago, naming a magazine Wired was hip. But as this century comes to a
close, a really hip magazine would call itself Unwired.
Internet access changed the face of PC industry by delivering everything from
news to products and services to home and office desktops. Now Inter net access
is the driving force for a new breed of cell phones and PDAs.
The number of cell phone subscribers worldwide is expected to reach nearly 500
million by 2002, up from 194 million in 1997, according to International Data
Corporation. Telephone carriers and handset makers are jousting for their piece of
the pie, and Internet access is their weapon of choice.
Access now is mainly limited to pagers displaying low-bandwidth information,
such as stock quotes and e-mail, usually with a 160-character maximum for
messages.
That is changing as old foes set aside their squabbles over standards and
software makers align with manufacturers.
Microsoft and Qualcomm, for example, have teamed up to create Wireless
Knowledgeto deliver information to Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange
users (but unfortunately not for Qualcomm's popular Eudora e-mail software).
The company's first service offering, Revolv, will provide mobile professionals
secure access to Microsoft Exchange servers. Future services will support Lotus
Notes, according to Wireless Knowledge Vice President of Marketing Dave
Whelan.
Revolv will give users flexibility in using different wireless or mobile equipment,
such as Windows CE devices, palm-size PCs, browser-equipped phones, pagers,
Web access terminals, PDAs and laptop computers running Windows CE,
Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT operating systems.
"Mobile professionals will be able to put ‘dead time' to good use," according to
"Andrew Seybold's Outlook," a mobile computing newsletter.
Revolv will be accessible over digital wireless wide area networks based on GSM,
CDPD, CDMA and other digital transmission standards. It will be available later
this year in the Bay Area from GTE Wireless, Sprint PCS, US West and AirTouch
Communications.
Third-generation cell phones
At the recent CeBIT show in Hannover, Germany, many manufacturers announced
3G phones—due out next year or 2001—and a variety of strategic alliances.
The three largest cell-phone makers, Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola, formed a joint
venture called Symbian with handheld computer maker Psion. Symbian's aim is to
create a globally accepted platform for hardware manufacturers based on Psion's
EPOC palmtop operating system. EPOC is a direct competitor to Windows CE.
The Ericsson R380 combines the convenience
of a cell phone with the data features of a PDA
Sun Microsystems sweetened the deal by announcing that Java technology will
be built into the Symbian platform. Sun also announced a deal with Japanese
carrier NTT Docomo to deploy Java, Jini and JavaCard technologies in NTT's
I-mode digital cellular phone next year.
The I-phone allows consumers in Japan to browse the Web, participate in
e-commerce and check e-mail. Java will allow for more sophisticated applications,
such as enhanced security and game play, while Jini will let cell phones access
other devices on the network, such as pagers and PCs.
Microsoft is also developing new 3G cell phone technology using "microbrowser"
software, a reference design that will be licensed to cell phone manufacturers and
software developers. The software will fit in a 100KB ROM, adding Web browser
capability to cell phones.
British Telecomm said it will develop new Internet, intranet and corporate data
services for mobile customers, using Microsoft's microbrowser in 3G handsets.
Nokia plans to include a microbrowser in its cell phones. Its model 7110, due out
by June, will let users access news, stocks and other information broadcast via the
Internet. Nokia will be one of the first manufacturers to use the new Wireless
Access Protocol (WAP) due out this summer. WAP adapts Internet standards
such as HTML and HTTP to the constraints of the wireless environment.
WAP uses XML and binary transmission instead of ASCII text for greater
compression of data. It is optimized for long latency, low to medium bandwidth
and intermittent coverage. It also makes optimum use of small screens and allows
easy one-handed navigation without a full keyboard. CNN will provide headlines
in the WAP format to Nokia 7110 phones and other WAP-enabled devices.
Global standards
But all of this fancy technology will be of limited use if it doesn't allow global
roaming. There are several competing standards for 3G digital phones. The big
three are:
Qualcomm's CDMA2000, which upgrades CDMA (code-division multiple
access) phones to work with the Internet.
Ericsson-backed WCDMA, which upgrades GSM phones, used by half of
the world's wireless customers.
UWC-136 (W/TDMA), which upgrades TDMA (time-division multiple
access) phones, backed by the Universal Wireless Communications
Consortium, which represents AT&T Wireless and other large operators in
Latin America, Canada, East Asia and Eastern Europe.
Ericsson recently agreed to purchase Qualcomm's CDMA technology, which may
eliminate one of the barriers to setting a standard. However, IDC wireless analyst
Iain Gillott isn't impressed. "These are two companies who agreed to disagree.
Nobody knows what the standard is. Everything is on hold."
Gillott pointed out that the International Telecommunications Union, which has 11
competing proposals, "will not decide on a final 3G wireless phone standard until
November, and it will take a year after that for companies to actually ship
products."
Packet-switched radio
While the 3G players are sorting it all out, what's available to mobile professionals
to access the Internet? With current cell phones, we're stuck with 19.2Kbps, using
the Cellular Digital Packet Data standard, or 9.6Kbps in Europe, using the Global
System for Mobile communications standard. That's because the analog cellular
telephone system suffers from dropouts and transmission delay problems that limit
speed and interactivity.
To access Web sites, you'll have to bypass cell phones and go for direct radio
transmission. Los Gatos-based Metricom operates Ricochet, a digital
packet-switched radio network that uses spread-spectrum transmission and
standard Internet protocol. A small 28.8Kbps modem with antenna attaches to
your laptop or handheld computer.
The service, priced at $29.95 per month, is only available in the Bay Area,
Washington D.C., Seattle and 11 airports, but the company plans to expand to 14
new metropolitan areas and 128Kbps service later this year.
Another wireless radio transmission system is 3Com's Palm.Net, accessible via its
Palm VII palmtop computer due out this year. The under-$800 Palm VII will have a
built-in, digital radio-based modem that will connect to the nationwide BellSouth
wireless digital packet network.
The Palm VII modem will only operate at 8Kbps, but it will be able to access special
Web information (such as stock quotes and flight schedules) using "Web
clipping" instead of a microbrowser. Web clipping is a low-bandwidth Web-page
format that will be offered on certain Web sites. When Palm VII ships, only 22
content providers will offer Web clipping on their sites, but 3Com Product
Marketing Manager Jim Kruger says a few hundred other developers are
developing sites using 3Com's free HTML-based software development kit.
Cisco Systems has teamed up with Motorola to create an Internet-based cellular
infrastructure that will connect wireless-phone and handheld computer users to
the Internet and corporate networks.
Qualcomm is teaming up with US West for a wireless service with peak download
times of up to 1.8Mbps.
Meanwhile, if you just want to check your e-mail and stocks while you travel,
there's BellSouth Interactive Paging Service (for $24.95 a month). Its $359 RIM
Inter@ctive Pager 950 can receive up to 16,000-character messages in 266
metropolitan areas.
Staff writer Amara D. Angelica can be reached at amaraa@techweek.com. |
