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WAP?
I wrote the text below 2 years ago, and that is still true.
The only real difference is that nowadays WAP is available on GPRS phones, and this makes a big difference.
At last you can browse news and other information with your phone at a decent speed.
We have set up a test web site: http://wap.maxpor.net , try it and let us know.
The problem is that GPRS is not 'always on' as they say.
Since a few people are using it, telecom operators sometimes can afford to leave no channels
available for the service because probably nobody complains.
The problem is that anything needs its time to start, but operators (and most companies as a general rule) want
immediate results. But it is like the cat biting its tail, few customers-->poor service-->less customers...
We are optimists, we even spent 3 months developing a PPP and UDP protocol to use our board in GPRS....
On the 15th of december I attended the Nokia WAP Seminary in Paris.
More than 400 people attended the event, though I did not meet many people from Italy.
Including flight and hotel it was a 1500 Euro event.
Many times we start doing something, buying machines and developing software, just to regret, a little later,
the amounts thrown in the waste basket.
This time I was lucky, I spent only 1500 Euro to decide that it is not worth for us investing in WAP.
The system is clumsy, because of the poor telephones and little bandwidth available now.
For this reason it is unbelievable to see WAP promoted as 'the wireless internet'.
If the Internet were like this, I would not pass a sunny day in the office
editing pages, as I am doing now.
They said at the convention that these problems will be solved when UMTS and 3G phones will be available, but I think that at
that time there will be no sense to use WAP, because anybody will use the real internet instead.
I think that the GSM system as it is in really good and its potential has not been fully exploited.
We are designing many applications with our TCS (Telecom Control Systems) 2.0 board, ranging from listening to meteo data from a
remote station, to control remote machines or home or car alarms. Some applications are either voice based with possibility of choosing
menus with DTMF touch tones, some other are SMS based, taking advantage of this powerful system of sending short text messages (SMS),
to send and collect data.
I hope that the telephone companies who are now paying such unbelievably big amounts to the governments for the UMTS licenses
will not dilute the costs charging them to ordinary GSM service.
So far it is very convenient to control by GSM and control by SMS many things. Telecontrol and GSM control is a good way
way to take advantage of the GSM system that in most countries covers almost 100% of the territory.
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