Nokia says EDGE to bring mobile multimedia in 2001
--From AOL News-- Cooters
HELSINKI, Feb 11 (Reuters) - The world's biggest mobile phone maker Nokia <NOK1V.HE>, which also makes wireless infrastructure, said a new technology called EDGE would be available next year to bring multimedia to mobile phones.
EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) is one of three so-called generation 2.5 mobile phone systems that will step up data transfer speeds ahead of the advent of third generations systems expected in 2002.
"Nokia EDGE terminals will be available at the same time as the infrastructure and will continue to support all GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) services," Nokia said in its corporate magazine Link.
"With the complete high-capacity Nokia EDGE solution, mobile multimedia services can be made available in 2001," it said.
Nokia said EDGE will bring data rates of up to 400 kilobits per second, which is 42 times the current GSM standard of 9.6 kilobits per second.
HSCSD (High Speed Circuit Switched Data) and GPRS, which can both be added to existing GSM networks, raise per second data speeds to 57.6 kilobits and 150 kilobits respectively.
Some operators already offer HSCSD and Nokia has a cardphone for laptops which runs up to 43.2 kilobits per second, and GSM network upgrades for GPRS are being built widely, with commercial launches this year.
GPRS phones and other terminals are expected this year, starting a gradual emergence of wireless multimedia services.
Speech travels well over 9.6 kilobits per second but good quality moving pictures require speeds of 200 to 2,000 kilobits per second, experts say.
Third generation systems, called UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications Standard) or Wideband CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), are expected to have normal capacity of 384 kilobits a second but can run up to 2,000 kilobits a second.
07:43 02-11-00 |
