The Pocket Computer

by Doug Smith

http://web.archive.org/web/20000123195710/www.ed2go.com/news/wireless.html

The cell phone of the future will not only make calls and check voice-mail, but allow you to check and send e-mail, browse the Web, shop, and make secure bank transactions. 

According to Nokia, these advances are planned for the very near future, though some current cell phones do feature limited PC and Internet capabilities. 

Major cell phone companies are making promises that within the next two years, data transfer speeds on wireless networks will be super fast. This newfound data speed will pave the way for a slew of new cellular devices and technologies, some of which are currently in the infancy of their planning. These new products would include hand-held videoconferencers and mobile wireless Web browsers at the forefront. 

Sales of cell phones around the world began to outpace the sales of personal computers in 1997, with consumers purchasing 100 million cell phones around the world as opposed to 80 million PCs. This trend promises to continue as developing Third World Countries, such as China, sign-up one million new cell phone users a month. Nokia and Motorola predict that by 2003, there will be one billion cell phone users worldwide, owning at least one cellular phone.

The cell phone of the future promises to be a hand-held pocket PC. You'll be able to communicate via the Internet, send and receive e-mail and video images, and browse the Web. Nokia is predicting that cellular phone Internet connections will outnumber PC Internet connections by 2004.

The International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency based in Geneva, is working to develop and ensure standards that will allow the world's wireless networks to communicate. The ITU is pushing a standard known as CDMA (code division multiple access). Standards such as CDMA will assure data speeds up to 40 times the current standard, allowing simultaneous video, e-mail, and phone conversations.

Nokia is hoping to spearhead the development of a "mobile information society," which will be in constant communication using cell phones to send messages, data, and video back and forth. Finland is Nokia's test market where Nokia cell phone users can currently send other users short message service (SMS) e-mail. This system allows a user to send e-mails of up to 160 characters. 

Another precursor of the future cellular phones are the RadioMobil phones currently at use in Prague. These phones allow their users, of which there are currently 630,000 subscribers, to send e-mail to a PC, get Czechoslovakian news, and make secure bank transfers. 

Microsoft, in association with Qualcomm, has plans to make software available to help cell phones work more like hand-held personal computers. 

Nokia seems to be the current leader in this arena, with its Nokia 7110 poised for release on the market worldwide by the end of 1999. This phone was first seen in the popular motion picture "The Matrix." 

The Nokia 7110 comes with wireless application protocol (WAP), and is equipped with its very own microbrowser, which allows users to view text version of websites. The 7110 will also have a modified mouse to aid in Web browsing. The Nokia 7110 Matrix phone will pave the way for future phone with larger screens to handle complex graphics and video images.

Though these new phones of the future are not promising you help travelling between alternate realities, the future of seamless communications is upon us. Soon someone may come up to you and ask: "is that a wireless PC in your pocket?"