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1. Feature Article: WAP in India (English only)
2. Do you have something special to say about WAP ? Write an article for the ccWAP Newsletter.
3. vCommerce is coming
4. German pharmacists start WAP-Network
5. MTV Asia and WAP-interactivity
6. i-Mode in Europe
7. Sprint personalizes WAP-services
8. ccWAP Browser 3.0
9. Your own WAP server for FREE !
10. Professional development of images, slide-shows and product presenations for WAP-devices.
11. UMTS Auction in Portugal
12. New chip for offline-browsing
13. Linux: Mobile- and PDA-Manufacturers wanted - embedded systems solutions
14. Manage your data on the fly wherever you are - mobile office
1. Feature article: WAP in India (Editors note: Thanks a lot to Hemang Dani from India for this article. )
WAP in India from Hemang Dani hemang_dani@rediffmail.com
For a nation, which got initiated to mobile telephony just about four years back, is it too early to talk about a wireless society? The pessimist will call it crazy, while the realistic observer may call it too optimistic. But then, things change very fast these days. Technologies have shown that they can change entire economies. Especially, two hottest technologies wireless communications and the Internet.
Internet usage has grown tremendously after the government privatized it in late 1998. According to Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI), the Indian Internet subscriber base at present is about 1.1 million and it is the fastest growing industry today.
But what about the cellular industry, which is still thick in the licence muddle? Just have a look at the current figures emerging from the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI). An estimated two million mobile subscribers growing currently at about a lakh per month are impressive figures given the difficult financial and operational constraints undergone by the operators. This speed of growth is now almost as good as the number of PCs being sold in the country. And there! One can hear the optimistic Indian mobile operator honcho saying, "The day is not far when a mobile phone will be more common than the PC in India." Today, the PC just cannot compete with the economy and mobility that a mobile phone offers.
Smarter chips designed for small devices like the phone have increased the processing and storing power of the cell phone. A new protocol, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), has done wonders by introducing a new facet Internet accessto the world of mobile telephony. New communication technologies like General Packet Radio Services (GPRS) and Universal Mobile Telephone Services (UMTS) will further boost up the functionality of the mobile phone by enabling seamless and faster communication of pictures, data, and video. Added to this, the SIM card is likely to become the smart "mobile money" when mobile fund transfers happen through smart card technologies.
Technology
The future looks more positive. Indians have good software skills, and these inherent talent can be used in the wireless Internet scenario as well, apart from the IT scene. Indian start-ups are actually developing wireless solutions that are being implemented globally. It may sound pompous, but it will not be a surprise if one finds "made in India" solutions running the value-added services, of say, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, or RadioLinja. The government made a smart decision to choose GSM as the technology for mobile cellular services. The mobile operators of India have put up GSM networks in almost every part of the country, save a few remote states. And now, with technology advancements in cellular telephony happening mostly around GSM, Indian operators are in a better position when it comes to migrating to future technologies.
Market
The market for wireless Internet services is small now. But it is growing rapidly. It could be right to say that the majority of the mobile subscribers are from the metros and high-income group of our society. But this trend is now changing as mobile telephony makes inroads into lower strata of society and the "B" class cities. On the other hand, it is feared that the fast growth of Internet usage might be curbed by our low PC penetration. Here the mobile phone could become the alternate device for Internet access, thus pushing up the usage of Internet.
In the advancement side of Wap, there are already a handful of WAP-enabled sites carrying local content in India, like rediff.com, sharekhan.com to name few. Airtel and Essar Cellphone in Delhi, Tata Cellular in Andhra Pradesh and Spice Telecom in Karnataka are investing in WAP infrastructure in their networks, to enable their customers to surf the 'Net while on the move. Even more unique, there are WAP service providers like Sharekhan.com that can be directly accessed through an ISP's network, independent of the mobile operator's gateway. And in a few months, probably all the major mobile operators in this country would have enabled their cellular phones to connect to the WAP-enabled Internet sites. Companies have actually plunged into this deep sea and started developing products by which they can compete with Companies like Nokia, phone.com,
Motorola etc.
To name a few they are Mumbai-based Orange has officially launched mobile Internet services with wide range of products. The most comprehensive WAP site so far in India, waphoria.com developed by Itfinity. India's leading portal, Rediff.com is one of the first Indian portals to enable access to its content through a mobile phone.
2. Do you have something special to say about WAP ? Write an article in the ccWAP Newsletter and reach over 3700 professionals all over the world !
ccWAP.com is looking for special articles about WAP. We are especially interested in short articles from non-European countries, but we will print any interesting article which is written detailed enough for our sophisticated newsletter readers. ccWAP.com has currently over 3700 registered newsletter readers in over 40 countries world-wide.
3. vCommerce is coming
Some programs which can be worked and commanded by voice have experienced some success in the PC-world. In a few years, this kind of technology will be sophisticated enough to also be used with WAP-devices. Experts, such as the Allied Business Intelligence/Wireless developers, predict already one million users within the end of 2001. In 2005, this number will have risen significantly to 56 million users all over the world. The actual commerce, which will take place within the vCommerce systems will create a multi-billion dollar market by 2003. As soon as UMTS is available in most parts of the world, there will be no limits to the boom of vCommerce.
4. German pharmacists start WAP-Network
Germany has approx. 22'000 pharmacies which will be included in a huge internet network. This will bring the German population many benefits, as they will be able to indirectly order any medicine they need from the closest pharmacy. In order to protect this system from abuse, the pharmacies will still have to check with the doctors first, before sending or reserving an order. Most of this information and eCommerce-portal will also be available for WAP-phones.
(http://www.apotheken.de/online )
5. MTV Asia and WAP-interactivity
MTV Asia is currently developing a new interactive program called U-Pop. In this special program, the TV viewers can freely communicate with MTV and its other viewers by putting messages directly on the TV screen. The service can be accessed with SMS and/or WAP-phones as well as over the regular internet.
6. i-Mode in Europe
The most serious competitor to WAP is the i-mode technology from the Japanese company NTT DoCoMo. In Japan I-mode has been a tremendous success with over 12 million users and NTT DoCoMo Europe will has opened up a laboratory in Germany to test whether it would be feasible to start a I-mode network in Europe. The biggest down-side to the project is that all the infrastructure would have to be put up since I-mode does not run on the GSM-networks which are the standard in Europe. The first European carrier of i-Mode is E-Plus in Germany.(www.nttdocomo.com )
7. Sprint personalizes WAP-services
Sprint has introduced a personalized service for all the users of the Sprint PCS network in the US. With this new service it is now possible to personalize links, news, sports results and more. There is also a possibility of sending and receiving e-mail with the mobile phone. Sprint includes over 4'000 US-cities as of today.
(www.sprintpcs.com )
8. New ccWAP Browser 3.0
Features :
WML 1.3 compatible
UTF-8 and ISO-8859-1
Full support for the character encodings Unicode UTF-8 and ISO-8859-1, the character encoding declarations of WML decks are evaluated.
WML-timers
WBMP
Tables
Base functionality
All of the base functionality like text formatting, hyper links and anchors, tasks, paragraphs, input elements, selection lists, variables, do-elements, templates, and so on is supported.
Source, Info
Two other buttons, Source and Info, allow the user to view the source of the current deck or to get some information about it.
Display size
The user can choose between different device types (Mobile Phone, PDA, ...) which influence mainly the size of the display area.
Intranet & Internet
Since ccWAP Browser is a Web-Server, it can be accessed as a service by anyone, from anywhere, at any time, in an Intranet or over the Internet.
9. Your own WAP server for FREE !
ccWAP.com introduces the new ccMagic Server. The new and revolutionary software turns any regular server into a WAP-server. The software is very easy to use and makes the dream of an own WAP-site a possible reality. Download the FREE ccMagic Server at www.ccwap.com .
10. Professional development of images, slide-shows and product presenations for WAP-devices.
ccWAP.com introduces ccGraphic and ccGraphic Pro: With the new software from ccWAP.com anyone can now show their favorite images on a WAP-site. Two versions are available: one is shareware ( download http://www.ccwap.com/download.htm ) while the other is the professional edition for companies. (www.ccwap.com )
11. UMTS Auction in Portugal
Portugal has also started the race for the UMTS-Licences. Seven contestants try to get the famed contracts. The bidders include such big names as TMN, Telecel and Optimus. Unlike in other UMTS-auctions, this is actually not an auction. In order to win, the companies have to show that they have the technical skills and infrastructures for UMTS. The winners have to pay around 100 million US Dollars and a yearly fee of approx. 50 million US Dollars.
12. New chip for offline-browsing
Mitsubishi, Sony and Intel Corporation have developed a new kind of chip for WAP-devices. This new chip will save the browsing information and makes offline browsing of WAP-pages possible. The technology of the chip is based on Flash memory. (www.intel.com )
13. Linux: Mobile- and PDA-Manufacturers wanted - embedded systems solutions
ccWAP.com is looking for manufacturers of mobiles and PDA's, which can be run with a Linux-based operating system and Linux software. ccWAP.com has developed special software for Linux-PDA's and Linux mobiles. The software needs no big memory requirements and runs very fast and stable. Special customization of the software such as special payment solutions, J2ME, WMLscript, games etc., is possible and can finished in no time. Also available is a mini-server for mobile WAP-devices and all other components for the infrastructure. Interested manufacturers of mobile communication devices, as well as manufacturers of parts (chips etc.) can contact Mr. Ken Rogers for more information at rogers@ccwap.com.
14. Manage your data on the fly wherever you are: ccOffice
ccWAP.com is now introducing ccOffice. With this software you can manage your data on the fly. Take a look at your calendar, to-do-list, notebook, bookmarks and much more with any WAP-device. Never forget another appointment. ccOffice is free and can be downloaded at www.ccwap.com
Also available ccOffice Pro Version with the following features:
MultiUser
Complete Organizer
Session Hiding (protects your data)
POP3 & SMTP
XML Export
Java technology
SSL
Advertising banners
No cookies
Object-oriented database
Search function
MultiLanguage
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