Inching towards a wireless web

October 1: NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile phone operator, unveils the world's first third-generation cellular phone network. Subscribers in Tokyo could buy the new FOMA - Freedom of Mobile Multimedia Access - phones, capable of sending and receiving Internet files as well as streaming video and music about 40 times faster than current phone technology allows. DoCoMo had earlier pioneered Internet via cellphone with its ``I- Mode'' service.

October 4: Microsoft launches the new version - PocketPC 2002 - of its year-old'lite' operating system - which was used by leading PC makers, HP, Compaq, Toshiba, Casio and others, to launch a new generation of hand-held computers also known as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs).

The machines come in the 500- 600 dollars price range, but predictions are that the consumer will give a thumbs down to these souped-up versions because Microsoft seems not to have appreciated that at that price, a PC without built-in connectivity to the Internet is like a motor car with one wheel missing.

Not surprisingly, the early players in the hand held PC business - market leader Palm and the aggressive Handspring - have heard the consumer's plaint, loud and clear and have added on to their main product PDA range, an umbilical to the Internet, via more than one route:

One way is to facilitate latching a mobile phone to the PDA and using the former to go online using a standard, like Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). Palm offers a ``Mobile Internet Kit'' - special software that turns the screen into a Web browser when you connect the Palm handheld to a data-enabled mobile phone or to a modem. Palm offers this with most of its current models including the M 100 and 500 series that were launched in India earlier this year.

Handspring also offers a similar feature with its ``Visor'' range of hand helds - only it goes one step further. The VisorPhone is an add-on card that fits into the ``SpringBoard'' expansion slot of the Visor and converts it into a computer and mobile phone

combined. The dialpad appears as soft keys on the Visor's screen. Indeed, it is becoming apparent that the days of the ``un- connected'' PDA are numbered. Samsung has just announced that it will shortly launch PDA, based on the Pocket PC 2002 design - but with a built-in cell phone. Fujitsu is expected to come up with its own product in this arena.

The other - and in the long run, cheaper - technology of accessing Internet from a mobile computing device, is to exploit what is sometimes called a Wireless ``Virtual Private Network'' (VPN).

This means, adding a Wireless Local Area Network card to the handheld device, which can then latch on to the nearest wireless subscriber network that operates in the same band as some cordless phones: 2.4 GHZ.

The network of access points created by the service provider is similar to the cell phone network created by the mobile operators, but it works to a different standard known as IEEE 802.11 ( a and b). In the US one can subscribe to such a wireless net provider. MobileStar and WayPort, are two big operators who provide a wireless umbrella over airport lounges, hotel chains - and the Starbucks coffee shops. Currently, subscribers pay for every megabyte of traffic - or a fixed monthly charge of around $ 40 for unlimited access.

Handspring is slated to add a wireless link to its next generation PDA called Treo k180.

The WAP standard that mobile companies adopted to bring the Net to cell phone users, is itself undergoing change. On June 15, WAP became WAP2 - otherwise known as ``Mobile Services Initiative'' the new standard for Internet on Global Services Mobile type cell phone services ( the standard followed in India). Ericsson was the first provider to go WAP a year ago.

The latest Nokia 5510 model is a device that combines a WAP 1.1 browser, a 64 MB store for up to 2 hours of MP3 music, an FM Radio all combined with the basic phone functions.

But whatever be the path chosen by different manufacturers, the goal is the same: bring the Internet to the mobile phone user because together they make an unbeatable combo of consumer interest.

As we inch towards Internet's next step - a wireless web- the shakeout has already started, and half baked or too-pricey technologies are falling by the wayside, in their dozens. Which will emerge as the `lean mean' PC-phone machine of the future? We have to wait and see.

Anand Parthasarathy

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