Wideband wireless service push
The Internet is a key factor behind the development of wideband wireless multimedia services.
'With the number of Internet users expected to almost match those of mobile users by 2001, there is no reason why the Internet should not be available wirelessly,' Ake Persson, vice-president for marketing and sales at Ericsson Radio Systems, said.
Typical examples of wideband wireless multimedia services are high-speed Internet/intranet applications, electronic multimedia mail, and full-motion video.
According to Swedish telecommunications firm Ericsson, Asia features strongly in the development of third generation (3G) technologies which are to be used for the common standard for wideband wireless communications which two international bodies have said they would deliver by 2000.
They are the European Telecommunications Standard Institute, for the Universal Mobile Telecommunications Systems, and the International Telecommunications Union, for the IMT-2000 initiative.
The 3G standard likely to emerge is called wideband CDMA (code division multiple access).
It is in the 2 gHz frequency band and already has been allocated throughout Asia and in Europe.
It offers transmission quality equal to ISDN (integrated services digital network), and speeds of 384 kilobits per second for data and Internet traffic.
The world's most widely deployed mobile telephone standard, GSM (global systems for mobile) and the United States' fastest growing standard, D-AMPS, are the two communication technologies most likely to meet the requirements of the new standard.
