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Roam. Making Sense of the Wireless Internet
Synopsis
(From the book's cover jacket)
During the last couple of years, we've been invaded by a whole new set of acronyms and a flurry of terms related to wireless communication technology. These include UMTS, GPRS, WAP, SMS, and 3G, as well as Bluetooth, i-mode, Blackberry, and m-commerce.
Heavily hyped by the industry, the phenomenon has happened fast. Spurred on by the billions of euros that telecom operators have committed to buy the rights to use airwaves from governments, it has grown even faster. Then, almost suddenly, many doubts have sufaced about the real contours of this space that we've grown accustomed to identify -- with a rather inaccurate but very handy shortcut -- as the "wireless Internet".
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But what is the wireless Internet? Is it "the Internet made mobile", or something completely different? How is the technology evolving and its uses becoming apparent? When will the promised life-changing wireless services finally materialize?
In today's business environment, executives and employees are more mobile than ever. Their access to data and information is shifting from the desktop to Internet-enabled wireless devices. The wireless proposition is therefore extremely appealing: being able to keep in touch anytime, anywhere -- with people as well as with data. Cut that cord and roam freely. Based on the promise of a vast market, cellular operators and hundreds of smaller companies are promising a wealth of new services, including: personalized forms of advertising, ticketing, live news, sport results and flight updates on-the-go, location-based services, one-touch wireless stock trading, city guides and easy access to your company's databases and to other value-chain shortcuts. In addition, of course, to any form of messaging: SMS, e-mail, instant messaging, mobile chat, picture-mail.
Yet every user's daily experience with mobile phones is one of calls breaking up or off, poor voice quality, dull WAP services, and patchy network coverage.
So, what's true, what's not? There are innumerable questions raised both by the technology and by what consumers will actually want and pay to use. What services may be offered at what price and when? Which services are most likely to be embraced by the consumers? How will wireless data technology impact on both companies and individuals? What new business opportunities will arise from mobile commerce? What are the risks? What lessons have the early experiments taught? What will be the future shape of handheld wireless devices? Is WAP dead? How did Japan's DoCoMo build i-mode into a service used by over 25 million people? Will location-based, "contextual" services be the ultimate convenience -- or the worst privacy nightmare? How vulnerable to viruses and hackers is the wireless world?
Roam answers these questions -- and many more. It dissipates the confusion, cutting through the hype to explore the the challenges and opportunities ahead. Explaining and analyzing products, services, technologies, markets, likely usages and business models, it is the first hype-free roadmap for the wireless future.
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