AtMobile On-Demand Mobile Phone Net Access
August 23, 1999
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BELLVUE, WASHINGTON, U.S.A., Newsbytes via NewsEdge Corporation : AtMobile.com has taken the wraps off a technology that itsays allows more than 28 million mobile phone users in the US to have access to on-demand and personalized Internet information. The system, known as the Wireless Internet Gateway, relies on the SMS (short message system) text messaging technology found on most PCS/digital cellular handsets today.
In use, the gateway enables wireless phone users to push and pull information services and e-commerce transactions on demand with a few simple keystrokes.
Mike Buhrmann, AtMobile.com's CEO, told Newsbytes that the firm is currently involved in a trial of the gateway with GTE Wireless in the Seattle and Spokane areas.
The trial allows mobile phone users to personalize their mobile information preferences from a selection that includes stock quotes, news, sports scores, weather and traffic.
The trial centers around AtMobile.com's Webcast service which involves mobile phone users to select elements of Internet content that is "pushed" to the mobile phone at predetermined times.
In addition to the push service, AtMobile.com is also allowing users to send broadcast messages to groups of people with whom they have a common community of interest, such as co-workers, friends, teammates, classmates and parent groups.
Buhrmann said that, while the facility of having data sent to your mobile phone at regular times is significant enough, the ability to poll the network for data, as well as to send text messages to groups are the services will prove most popular.
"It's great to be told about how your sports team is doing, but our research suggests that people are most happy when they can control the data from the network, when they most want it," he told Newsbytes.
Although cellular carriers must sign up for the service, the gateway technology is designed to give more than 28 million digital wireless subscribers immediate, on demand, access to the Internet.
"This is a market that is growing by about one million phones a month, " he said, adding that subscribers will be able to retrieve information in a way that is reliable, simple, convenient and inexpensive because it uses the subscriber's current phone.
It's still early days with the gateway, and AtMobile.com is planning to release an updated version of the technology this fall - Wireless Internet Gateway 2.0 - which will include a new facility, the Wireless IMessenger.
This service will allow subscribers to deliver instant messages to and from wireless phones and PCs. IMessenger will also be able to sense whether the subscriber is currently using a wireless phone or a PC and automatically route instant messages to the appropriate device.
AtMobile.com's Web site is at atmobile.com .
Reported by Newsbytes.com, newsbytes.com .
(19990820/Press Contact: Rhonda Trenholm, Barr & Wilcox 877-694-5269 /WIRES ONLINE, TELECOM/)
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