Access the Net from your mobile phone!

Access the Net from your mobile phone!

Vishnu K. Mahmud, Contributor, Jakarta

After stubbornly holding on to an old, dilapidated cellular
phone for years (which my friends called "The Brick"), I finally
relented to the advances of mobile technology and purchased the
new Ericsson T-39, a petite handphone filled with gigantic
features.

I was intrigued with it since many people had nothing but
praise for its capabilities, especially its wireless connectivity
facilities. I decided to give it a try.

The T-39 is a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) ready phone
that can access the Internet without needing to constantly dial
in and pay by the minute charges. Dubbed 2.5 G, this service
provides a glimpse of what 3G (Third Generation) mobile
technology will be about. GPRS is an "always on", packet
switching service and users only have to pay by the number of
kilobytes they exchange (sending and receiving), not by the
length of time spent reading online.

IM3 (www.indosat-m3.com) is currently the only GPRS provider
in Indonesia, so I purchased an IM3 "Smart" (the pre-paid version
of Indosat's cellular service) SIM card and tried to get online
with my handphone. Configuring the phone for GPRS was relatively
easy thanks to instructions from IM3's specialized member website
(www.indosat-m3.net).

IM3 GPRS is free till about the end of February so users can
access the web to browse and download as much as they wish
without paying for it.

The default homepage on the handphone for IM3 was, of course,
their own website. Using Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) I
was able to read the latest Indonesian news, cinema listings and
others via the small screen of my handphone. Granted, it may be
rather annoying constantly scrolling down to read the news but if
you're stuck in traffic, or in a position where you cannot get to
a computer, it's as good as it gets.

Another test was to access my Yahoo! e-mail account. You can
access yahoo via its WAP site at wap.yahoo.com. Once connected, I
was offered the basic My Yahoo! facilities such as browsing news
and checking e-mail. Entering your username and password can be a
pain using the alphanumeric keypad but "Chatboards" or small
keyboards for Ericsson handphones are available for heavy power
users.

Viewing through my Inbox and reading news on the WAP site,
although small and basic, actually yielded a small amount of
bandwidth. By the end of this exercise, I had utilized less than
30 kilobytes (23k received, 7k sent), which is remarkable
considering that one page in regular internet HTML (Hyper Text
Markup Language) on Yahoo! can be more then that!

Using WAP may be "ugly" compared to HTML but it does save you
bandwidth fees when IM3 starts charging for their GPRS
connections.

The T-39 also has an infrared port so connecting it to
Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) is also possible. A friend of
mine, an ex-journalist, spent hours on his IPAQ and GPRS phone
accessing the net from his dining table, until the batteries (of
either the phone or Pocket PC) ran out. Such are the benefits of
wireless Internet, so I thought I'd give it a try.

You can install the Eudora Web Browser for the Palm on your
Palm, IBM or Handspring devices and connect to the Internet "via
modem with infra red (IR) port". Both IR ports should be aligned
and stationary for optimized connections. Although Palm users
may not have the colorful experience offered by the Windows-based
Pocket PC, obtaining information and checking e-mail is
acceptable.

The only drawback for this was that using the IR port drains
the batteries for both phone and handheld. Cables to connect both
devices are available and should be considered. In addition, the
web browser accesses the kilobyte heavy HTML pages directly and
the access charges can add up.

For the moment, there are a few blank spots in IM3's GPRS
network but that may change as they continue to expand their
systems.

The T-39 is not the only GPRS enabled phone in Indonesia.
It's sister, the color-screened T-68, along with the Nokia 8310,
Motorola V66 and Siemens ME45 or S45 can also be used to access
the web. It may have small screens and lack multimedia
capabilities compared to handheld devices but despite its
limitations, portability has its benefits.

So what was the point of all this? Mobility, and more
importantly, accessibility in connecting with the Internet.
People will be able to pay bills, read news, transfer funds and
send instant messages via their cellular phone. Handphones are
not as expensive as computers so more and more Indonesians will
be able to access the World Wide Web.

Local businesses can be built around the "mini-web" offered by
GPRS and WAP, providing services and charging fees accordingly.
In the future, the features of PDA's and handphones will be
merged, offering affordable Internet wireless solutions for the
masses.

But more importantly for me, I can read the latest gossip on
Britney Spears during boring company meetings!

To get an idea of what WAP can do, visit the IM3 website at
www.indosat-m3.net to see a demonstration of a cellular phone WAP
browser.