On Sat, 3 May 2003, Giovanni Bertani wrote:
> The main difference is the full integration between device and the=20
> Wireless mobile network services and infrastructure 2g 2.5g or 3g like=20=
>
> GPRS and W-CDMA (Not WI-FI as it still lacks of basic services for a=20
> real mobile network) that today Pocket PC and Palm OS (and probably=20
> still SmartPhone) are not yet capable.
I assume you're talking about things like being able to "find" a
device anywhere, at any time, and get a message to it right away. It's
certainly true that a WiFi-using device can't be used as a pager, and
even if you did hack the system so that it could, the power requirements
for the device would be awfully high. (An always-on WiFi connection,
even with the best power-saving available, will suck a small device's
battery dry in hours, especially on a busy network, and these need to
compete with standby times of well over a week for modern keitai.)
I would anticipate that any device that's really going to compete with
a phone and still offer cheap, high-speed capabilities is going to have
to do both. You'd use the always-on, low-speed, expensive telephone-type
network for the standby capabilities, and the sometimes-on, high-speed,
cheap LAN-type network for the times when you need to move a lot of
data. So the mail alert, along with minimal information about the mail
(subject, first bit of text) would come via the telephone network, and
then the device would attach via a WiFi network to do the rest of the work.
We already have laptops with PHS and WiFi built-in (though admittedly
it's data-only PHS), so this stuff may start to happen in smaller form
factors soon.
cjs
--
Curt Sampson <cjs_at_cynic.net> +81 90 7737 2974 http://www.netbsd.org
Don't you know, in this new Dark Age, we're all light. --XTC
Received on Mon May 5 05:00:54 2003