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The Mobile Intranet
Getting Closer to a World Mobile Phone (May 1998)
by Bob Emmerson and Rainer Mauth
The goals of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) initiative are quite ambitious. Just imagine a cellular phone that works under one phone number in Berlin and San Francisco as well as it does in Hong Kong, that provides mobile videoconferencing wherever you are and lets you browse the Web at a remarkable 144 Kbps.
Full Article (PDF: 67 Kb)

Smart Messaging to Come to GSM
The new Wireless Application Protocol takes information distribution on GSM to a new level. (January 1998)
by Bob Emmerson
Utter the word messaging , and many European mobile phone users think of Short Message Service (SMS), a 160-character, text-only, pager-like message format. But a new, smarter messaging concept will make its way into Europe's Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) networks later this year.
Full Article (PDF: 68 Kb)

Hand-Held PCs Wait for Localization (October 1997)
by Bob Emmerson
If you want to buy a Windows CE-compatible hand-held PC (HPC) in your local language, you may have to wait until the end of the year. Now, however, you can buy U.S. versions from manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard, Philips, and NEC in some European countries.
Full Article (PDF: 54 Kb)

New GSM Network Services (July 1997)
by Bob Emmerson
The latest European GSM standards will soon bring more intelligence to the network. This will enable network operators to create new services and allow compliant phones to use advanced call-handling features such as intelligent transfer to a wireline phone if the mobile phone cannot be reached, with transfer to cellular voice mail if that second call is not completed.
Full Article (PDF: 51 Kb)

Internet Telephony
IP-enabled PBXes will let you make long-distance calls for the the cost of two local connections. (May 1997)
by Bob Emmerson
Internet telephony is becoming a more serious business tool as it merges with traditional PBXes. These Internet gateway switches are creating a new market that will be worth $560 million by 1999, according to International Data Corp.
Full Article (PDF: 65 Kb)

The CAPI Puzzle
The German version of Windows 95 includes support for CAPI 2.0; other versions don't. (August 1996)
by Bob Emmerson and David Greetham
Is ISDN the ideal platform for voice, fax, and video telephony that will replace analog phone systems?
Full Article (PDF: 83 Kb)

Teamwork on the Net
Adaptive multimedia applications will aid collaborative work. (July 1996)
by Bob Emmerson and David Greetham
Of the 44 million computers that will sit on Europe's corporate desktops in 1998, 71 percent will be connected to a LAN. Most network managers think of LANs as coherent topologies and regard WANs as links between islands of information.
Full Article (PDF: 85 Kb)

New Mobile Communicators (June 1996)
by Bob Emmerson
Traffic on GSM networks is growing at a staggering rate of 580 percent per year, according to Mike Short, technical director of CellNet, one of the big GSM operators in the U.K. But only 5 percent of it is data traffic.
Full Article (PDF: 75 Kb)

Finns Watch Internet TV
With an ATM backbone, Telecom Finland is providing multimedia services over the Internet (March 1996)
by Bob Emmerson
This is the scenario: The Internet is growing by gigantic leaps and bounds. Today's PCs are powerful multimedia machines. An ATM backbone can simultaneously deliver multimedia data to several thousand clients. Compression technology squeezes audio and video data down narrow pipes. So why not deliver video, live radio, and music over the Internet?
Full Article (PDF: 70 Kb)

GSM's Extraordinary Growth
At last: anywhere/any time communication and mobile client/server technology arrives (March 1996)
by Bob Emmerson and David Greetham
GSM -- the global system for mobile communications -- has reached critical mass. Around $50 billion has gone into the infrastructure, giving this technology a rock-solid foundation. The market is huge, global, and growing fast, which means that the time for some real innovation has finally arrived.
Full Article (PDF: 90 Kb)

Smart Telephony
With simultaneous voice and data, new screen phones will bring better services (January 1996)
by Bob Emmerson
What exactly is this thing? It looks like someone crossed a telephone with a little TV screen . Look closer and you'll find a slide-out alphanumeric keyboard, plus slots for memory and smart cards. There's also a built-in modem, a printer output, and a serial interface for a bar-code or magnetic-stripe reader. Is it a feature phone, a data terminal, or a dual-media device? None of the above. It's a smart "screen phone" from Philips.
Full Article (PDF: 75 Kb)