'Bugs' delay the launch of the third generation mobile
'Bugs' delay the launch of the third generation mobile
By Mila Day
JAKARTA (JP): Think of the word "bugs" and any number of images comes to mind: termites, cockroaches, Bugs Bunny, and the coding error in computers.
NTT DoCoMo Inc., Japan's largest mobile phone group recently delayed the launch of their third generation (3G) mobile telecommunications until October, thanks to bugs.
The 3G technology allows cell-phone users to communicate with colors and more lifelike images, not just the 2G's text-based features. Claiming to be the worldwide leader in 3G services, DoCoMo, a spinoff of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, which now accounts for more than 50 percent of Japan's mobile telephone market, has spent $15.5 billion investing in overseas companies like AT&T Wireless.
Before announcing the delay last month, DoCoMo talked about releasing 4G much sooner than 2010. Thanks to 3G software "bugs", the fourth generation, which includes facilities for fast- loading, high-quality, streaming media, is bound to be popular and successful.
The first and second generations
The 1G mobile services offered basic connections to others while on the move. The 1G period started in the late 1970s and ended in the 1980s.
Using analog voice signaling, the networks during this era were slightly more sophisticated than repeater networks used by amateur radio operators.
Thus, 2G offered more features than 1G. Beginning in the 1990s, 2G featured digital voice encoding. Today we use 2.5G with a wider bandwidth, packet routing, and a small amount of multimedia.
The 3G is equipped with greater speed and bandwidth, enhanced multimedia, routing flexibility, and connections to all popular telecommunication modes (e-mail, pager, fax, web browser, etc.).
Incorporating the latest technology, 3G has proven elusive for the world's big mobile telecom groups, which have paid tens of billions of dollars to governments for licenses for the airwaves. The telcos (telecommunication companies) are selling text- messaging, phone-shopping and other highly evolved wireless services with 3G advancement.
The price of payload
Recently, the three cellular telephone operators, Satelindo, Telkomsel, and Excelcomindo, have allowed the sending of SMSs (short message service) between their subscribers, a service that was once barred due to a shortfall in technology. The SMS fee is charged based on the messages sent, not received.
Soon we will only pay for information sent or received. Telcos in many countries, Indonesia excluded, have implemented a flat rate for local fees per month. We pay a sum of money for all calls that are made during the month, be it a 24-hour conversation during the day or a one-minute greeting to a friend.
Up until now we have had to pay for the connection time when we make calls. Yet, this is about to change in the near future. We will soon only have to pay for the bandwidth we use, like an SMS sent via a mobile phone. How can that be possible?
Well, the reason is that a call is an audible form of data, less sophisticated than a moving image. Audio, sound within the acoustic range available to humans, can be accessed by computers easily nowadays. Sound itself is a sequence of analog signals that are converted to digital signals by an audio card. An audio card is a processor and memory for processing audio files and sending them to speakers.
Audio files are usually compressed for storage or faster transmission. A wave file is a Microsoft standard, compressed audio file. Download the entire audio file, save it in a directory, then you can listen to it as many times as you like.
You can also open the file as streaming sound if you want to listen to the latest Janet Jackson hit sample direct from the internet. Streaming sound is sound that is played as it arrives. You need a plug-in player such as Progressive Networks' RealAudio and Macromedia's Shockwave for Director. This arrangement is also valid for streaming video with sound, the 4G's flagship.
Less is not necessarily more
Today, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and laptop computers can be linked to local area networks (LAN), or directly to a mobile, infrared-enabled phone. With internet access, will PDAs and laptops become more appealing than a mobile phone with 3G technology?
PDAs and laptops have bigger screens than a mobile phone. Compaq's iPaq H3630 is the prima donna of today's range of pocket computers. It has colors and a Windows operating system, along with Microsoft Pocket applications such as Internet Explorer, Outlook, Word and Excel. It possesses many of the features that a desktop has, yet the iPaq provides all these with a pencil-like pointer.
Cell-phones, though, have other advantages. They are so small that they can fit into your shirt pocket. It only needs your fingertips to type. Siemens' SL45 delivers near CD-quality audio. The latest technology also allows it to display color too.
While more and more features are added to the audio-based cellular phone, some analysts have warned that technology glitches may delay worldwide 3G offerings for three years.
The 2.5G to 3G services still allow a cell-phone to be the most preferred mobile device. When the next generation finally arrives -- 4G that is -- PDAs, laptops and cell-phones will be available in a converged physical form. Will it be a PDA with hidden microphone and camera? Or the other way round, a three- folded cell-phone with LCD screen that can be stretched out without a divider?