WITHOUT a doubt, we have entered the era of truly mobile computing.
With some of the new notebook computers on the market, not only has portability been improved, but expansion options, built-in features and raw processing power increased to the point where it is arguable that the latest breed of portable computers rivals and even surpasses their desktop brethren in terms of practicality and even bang-for-bucks.
Still, the whole concept of mobile computing hits a snag. After all, the promise is computing anywhere, anytime. But, today computing is closely linked to telecommunications and it is here that the whole paradigm of mobile computing has generally met its limits. After all, while the computer could be carried around and used anywhere, connection to the telecommunications network, especially for affordable yet high-speed communications would require access to a land-based telephone network.
This is beginning to change and it would seem that the industry is on the verge of the next evolutionary step in portable computing: mobile data communications.
Until recently, mobile data communication has been linked to private network standards such as those offered by Motorola and Ericsson. But, with the development of Cellular Digital Data Packet (CDPD) standards for the American mobile phone industry and data communication standards with European protocols such as GSM, it is finally a realisable dream to have data, fax and voice traffic all moving over the same digital cellular networks presently in place.
'CDPD utilises the existing cellular network infrastructure and by adding few hardware components and utilising the same channel resources it provides wireless data services,' said Jack Yuan, AT&T Asia Pacific's wireless technical manager. 'It minimises investment. A lot of new terminals from different vendors will support wireless data and wireless voice in the same terminals. CDPD maximises the uses of existing infrastructure.' Today, CDPD is only implemented on the AMPS digital network standard from North America, where CDPD developed. It can be implemented on existing AMPS networks by adding minimal hardware at cell base stations and adding appropriate computer network hardware and software to manage data routing and management. CDPD offers speeds as high as 19.2 Kbps for data transmission.
