“What is W-CDMA?”
http://www.engadget.com/entry/5845286752906153/
This in an Engadget article talking about 3G hitting countries other than Japan.
NTT DoCoMo has been using W-CDMA technology to deliver the 3G closed-circuit network that Japan’s cellular service runs on. Debuting in 2001, they have been the first in the world to take that technological leap.
I’m no expert in communications technology, so all my opinions in this post are just off the top of my head. Feel free to correct me if you see any misinformation due to my lack of (or non-exisitent) research about the topic.
“Telephony via Internet”
“What is UMTS?”
“What is GSM?”
“Globe Telecom”
“Smart Telecommunications”
“What in an API”
Many have been speculating that Europe was on its way a couple of years ago too, but they fail to realize that whatever Europe’s carrier services were using, were merely 2G technology made to mimmick 3G performance (2.5-2.75G if you will)
In March 2003 however, Hutchison 3G UK Holdings was the first to start 3G services in the United Kingdom. And now UMTS has found it’s way to AT&T Wireless. I guess it’s only a matter of time before the whole world catches up.
I wonder if this would also mean that easier roaming is just down the road. As the world progresses in telephony/communications, Japan has been a pain in the arse country to visit simply because most [if not all] “regular” cellphones don’t work there. We may be considered a savvy culture when it comes to mobile communication. The USA has adopted GSM technology early this century, when we’ve been using it since the late 90’s. But it’s all a matter of preference I guess. However, as compared to Japan, everyone not on the 3G bandwagon seem like losers compared to ordinary Japanese folk. Hell, they proabably don’t even know that they’re using the latest in cellular communications technology.
How will Globe or Smart (or Sun, etc.) handle this trend when it becomes visible enough? Will it stick to the GSM standard or embrace the light sooner or later? I hope it’s the latter.
Being a web developer, the trend now in systems development is towards independent web-services. An enterprise may now comprise of totally separate systems (even in propriety). APIs are a wonderful thing. They allow inherently different systems to talk to each other. I would like to see the different cellular technologies adopt the same mindset and have cross band/platform interoperability.
But… the problem isn’t interoperability; you can call a person with a UMTS connection in another country using your GSM cell phone here. The problem is that cellular services require “cell sites” for a particular technology. To support GSM, you should have GSM cell sites installed, and so on.
The best analogy I guess would be the different ways of accessing the Internet. You have your dial up, broadband, fiber channels, Wifi, et all, to connect to the very same world-wide-web (WWW). These are all different touchpoints of accessing the same thing. I would like that communications would be like this eventually. That there be a unified standard pipe, wherein actual communication data passes through ultimately. Your different cellular technologies may then connect to it – whichever way they think nessecary.
There will be penalties, of course. Speed being first among them. 3G incorporates native web support alongside it’s voicedata service. Hell I won’t be surprised if UMTS uses the web itself to stream the data of the voice calls.
There will be a time when probably the WWW will ultimately become the “pipe” of choice. It’s there, it works, why re-invent the wheel when you can simply improve on it. There are even services that already capitlize on it.
Due to the nature of the internet, distributed computing and storage practically gives any service limitless potential. The only issue will be the technologies that deliver the throughput for such services. Aaaaahhh, we can all dream can’t we?