'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?