With WML and WAP the mobile Internet has become reality by using mobile phones. In the past you needed to connect a laptop to a wireless modem or to your GSM phone for going online. But in the meantime, it's no more necessary to do so, if you want to have access to the contents of World Wide Web. With WML language the websites are so programmed that they can be displayed on the mobile phone. However, customary devices which worked with the GSM standard were not able to receive and display these contents.

Special cell phones were necessary, which support the WAP Protocol and they should have a WAP Browser as well. That was the birth of the second generation of mobile phones. By such a phone the user can download WAP pages directly from the Internet. These were for example the latest news, time tables of trains or telephon numbers, stock exchange, weather forcasts and so on, and of course they could be accessed any time. But you could not realy have so much fun by surfing the net in this way.

On the former GSM networks the data crept like a snail with a data rate of 9,6 Kbit/s on displays and that wasn't realy ideal ! One of the other transfer techniques which made it faster was HSCSD. It transmited data with a maximum rate of 57,6 Kbit/s, almost as fast as ISDN. Information could be sent by two or three transmit channels. However, this technique was not able to carry through, because most of the manufacturers of mobile phones had decided in favour of another standard.

GPRS was the next standard and/or generation. This technique enabled to reach more speed by transfering data and it had also other advantages. First of all, it offered transfer rates of about 40 Kbit/s and later it could be increased even to 115 Kbit/s . In addition, it maked possible to be permanent online and you could run several applications simultaneously, e.g. for calling some one and downloading data. Contrary to GSM, voice and data were send separately. By GPRS data was splitted up to small packages which go out one by one and the GPRS device had to bring all thess packages together again.

UMTS is the current generation of mobile phone technology and with its maximum transfer rate up to 2 Mbit/s, multimedia contents like images and videos can easily be transfered through the mobile network. UMTS is set to revolutionize the way we use our mobile phones, offering a wide range of services, from sending and receiving e-mails, photomessaging and video calling to accessing to news and information services.

This standard is in further development and there are more and more new technical processes that has been added to it, such as the HSDPA, which enables much higher transfer rates like DSL. Thereby the maximum Data rate is limited by the so called "receivers category", typically 3,6 Mbit/s (category 6) and 7,2 Mbit/s (category 8). Maximum 13,98 MBit/s is possible for the category 14, but in practice not achievable.

on mobile phone !
The developers of Sun Micro systems wanted to bring life to the displays of mobile phones with this programming language. Applications as EMail clients, dictioneries, city maps or games can be presented in color, exciting, interactive and fast. This Java version for using on cell phones is not the same version which runs on pc's and other computers. This version called JAVA ME, is a simplified and adjusted version for mobile devices.

One of the advantages is, when these mini programms, also called Midlets, are installed once they can be used any time. Different than WAP, you can for example write and edit your mails before you go online, don't have to pay for the whole time and later when you are ready you can send your mail. Meanwhile most of the mobile phones support Java several wellknown manufacturers equip lot of their devices with Java. But of course Java is not the end of the development in this sector.

Some of the interesting developments of the last couple of years are for example the so called DVB-H ( Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds ) and DMB ( Digital Multimedia Broadcasting ), standards which enable mobile devices to receive and display even TV - Programs on the way, GPS capability and so on. Check out some of these devices right here

Currently the so called Smartphones offer the most up-to-date technique in the field of mobile Internet. These devices have usually a bigger display, which can be used mostly by Touchscreen and enable mobile communication and data transfer almost everywhere. Here are some of the latest models :

Anyway, the future is now and it's not only DIGITAL, but also MOBILE !