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.