GPRS found initially slow in Europe.
JohnG
FEATURE-Fast mobile Internet via GPRS not so fast yet
January 16, 2001 06:02:00 AM ET
By Jan Strupczewski
STOCKHOLM, Jan 16 (Reuters) - If you were looking forward to browsing the Internet quickly
and easily with a new GPRS mobile phone, you may have to wait a little longer.
The networks, software and a few handsets are there, but smooth operation and sophisticated
services are still a distant dream.
User experience of GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), launched in Sweden, Britain and
Finland late last year, shows the new standard, bridging the popular but slow GSM standard
and the future ultra-fast third generation mobile telephony (UMTS), is still in the teething stage.
GSM, used widely in current mobile systems, keeps an open line between two phones
irrespective of the amount of data coming through.
In contrast, GPRS sends data in packets which are reassembled at the other end, just as
computers communicate with each other on the Internet.
It makes much better use of network resources and makes it possible to load information on to
handsets much faster than at present, at transmission speeds of up to 115 kilobytes a second
(kbps) -- much faster than most home PC Internet connections, and more than 10 times faster
than most GSM phones.
It also cuts Internet logging-on times and lets the user stay always on-line.
BETTER BILLING
Better still, GPRS allows telecoms operators to offer services they have long dreamed of which
are targeted at individual subscribers depending on where they are located at the time --
availability of local hotels, nearby restaurant menus, weather and traffic information, and the
like.
And the services are billed in terms of the data volume transmitted, not the connection time.
GPRS does not require telecoms operators to invest huge amounts in special licences as with
UMTS, but the drawback is that the new service has to be crammed into the same bandwidth
as current GSM services, congesting it even further.
Mobile phone and network producers and telecoms operators hope GPRS will let them keep
up handset and services sales momentum, offsetting an ever more saturated GSM market,
before the new UMTS telephony takes over in two or three years' time.
But December tests of GPRS in Sweden and Finland suggest a GPRS boom may still be
some time away, as Internet access can be difficult, the connection slow and the services do
not yet offer more than is already available for Web-surfing GSM phones.
"Many times I could not log on, so I really could not try the features very much," said Joel
Asblom, a reporter on Computer Sweden daily, who tested operator Europolitan GPRS
service on Motorola's (MOT) Timeport GPRS handset.
"It wasn't very useful. I hooked it up with my portable computer and then it was slightly better,
but I'm not sure if it was any better than surfing with a normal GSM."
EARLY TESTS DISAPPOINT
Reuters' tests of the Europolitan/Motorola GPRS service in December were also
disappointing, with access to the Internet the exception rather than the rule, and Web browsing
erratic.
Mid-December trials of Finnish operator Sonera's (SNRA) GPRS service, according to
reviews in Finnish dailies Helsingin Sanomat and Taloussanomat, were plagued by technical
problems with Internet surfing as slow as on the old GSM system and prices nearly as high.
"I am surprised, because most of our feedback was really positive. The sales are better than
we had hoped for," Rikard Svensson, Swedish Europolitan's GPRS product manager, told
Reuters.
Other users testing Europolitan's service said they could connect easily to the Web but that
browsing with the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) software, which allows mobile phones
to surf the net, was disappointingly slow.
"I could connect easily and see all kinds of services and websites, but it was not any quicker
than a normal GSM phone," said Niklas Lidstrom, a reporter at Tidningen Mobil, a daily
specialising in mobile phones.
Europolitan's Svensson could not immediately explain the problems with logging onto the
Internet, but said the slow speed could be related to the capacity constraints of the WAP server
which links phones with the Internet.
Success in surfing by phone is affected by the version of WAP software and the processing
power of the handset's microchip (CPU) and the size of its memory.
HANDSET MANUFACTURERS HOLD KEY
One of the key bottlenecks for transmission speed is the number of time slots a phone uses,
roughly the number of channels it can use simultaneously to send and receive data.
"The more time slots a mobile phone has the greater the amount of data that it can send and
receive," said Jan Ahrenbring, vice president for marketing and communications at Ericsson ,
the world's third biggest mobile phone maker.
"But the more time slots it has the more power it uses so there is a trade-off between the
speed and battery life."
Most GSM phones use only one time slot, which is the equivalent of 9.6 kbps. GSM phones
using the advanced High Speed Circuit Switched Data (HSCSD) technology and the Motorola
Timeport use multiple time slots, boosting downloading power.
"The phone is one of the bottlenecks. Theoretically, it is possible to get 80-100 kbps data
transfer speed in our network now, but phones allow only 20-30 kbps," said Sonera
spokesman Jyrki Karasvirta.
"Eventually it will be 40 kbps and then perhaps 60 kbps, but there are no phones which offer
that speed now."
Apart from the Motorola phone there are still very few other GPRS terminals on the market to
choose from, which hinders the development of the new service, analysts say.
Ericsson is due to release its GPRS R520 handset in commercial volumes in the first quarter
of this year while Nokia , the biggest mobile phone maker, will not be out with a GPRS phone
until the second quarter.
The Ericsson phone, which has four time slots against Motorola's two, a new, improved version
of the WAP Internet browser, and features Bluetooth technology enabling it to communicate
with other devices, is seen as key to GPRS success.
"One of the most important new terminals will be the Ericsson R520, because it is the first
terminal in the world to support GPRS, WAP version 1.2 and an integrated Bluetooth chipset. It
is a good device," said Simon Buckingham, head of Mobile Lifestreams mobile telephony
consultancy.
"GPRS combined with the new version WAP 1.2 is really a killer combination which will
kick-start both of those technologies."
WILL GPRS BOOST MOBILE INTERNET SURFING?
Fast data transfer with GPRS is expected to breathe new life into mobile Internet browsing,
which has so far failed to attract many people using GSM because it is so slow.
A study by Swedish pollster Mobile Opinion in mid-November showed that only six percent of
mobile phone users browsed the net regularly with their handsets, while 79 percent did not
have a WAP-enabled phone at all.
GPRS offers a better way of customer billing and the possibility of being always on-line, but it
does not improve much on the speed of Internet browsing compared with advanced GSM
phones using HSCSD technology.
Petri Poyhonen, head of Nokia's GPRS business programme, said it was much quicker to log
on with GPRS than with GSM, but then GPRS had little advantage in terms of speed over
HSCDS, on which Nokia has chosen to focus so far.
"Once the user is on-line, the packet service cannot be any faster than the high-speed
circuit-switched GSM phone. They are of comparable speed if they use the same number of
time slots," he said. |
