March 27, 2003
Rapid-Fire WirelessDana Cline
1G, 2G, 3G: It’s a new day for mobile development
In the past, the wired world has existed separately from wireless telecommunications. Now, the two fields are converging. Bill Day’s March 26 session on wireless development gave an overview of various protocols and platforms, but fell short of inspiring this developer to abandon the desktop. A Sun Microsystems Technology Evangelist, Day started off explaining all the flavors and generations of cellular technology, starting with 1G (analog), 2G (TDMA, GSM and CDMA), and up to 3G (bordering on wireless networking). A chart listing what percentages of cell phone users use which technology followed this. GSM has the lion’s share at almost 70 percent. Next, Day spoke about the WAP protocol, which is being replaced by XHTML and standard HTTP/TCP/IP protocols. He then segued into software development using Java 2 Mobile Edition. Finally, the subject rolled around to what we know as wireless networking. He explained the difference between 802.11b and 802.11a, and how they’re different from Bluetooth. He didn’t mention 802.11g (the newest, fastest addition to the family that’s also apparently not quite ready for primetime), and was poised to give us more details on the protocols when time ran out. The session gave a good overview of wireless, but focused more time on cell phones than networking. Day offered an overview of what developers can build for Java-enabled phones—games, predominantly—but also pointed out the persistent kludginess of multimedia and networking functionality. Stay tuned.
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