Engineer,
I have no idea about international roaming agreement stuff. I did not even think of it when I asked questions to the rep. in Sprint PCS booth.
All and Mika,
Is it true? Just software compression?
Ericsson quadruples wireless web browsing speeds
Ericsson has taken the wraps off a digital cellular data transfer technology known as WebOnAir.
As the name implies, the technology aims to allow users of notebooks, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and other portable Web-accessing computers, to access the Web. Its unique selling point, however, is that it speeds up the Web page downloads by up to four times, the firm says.
Data compression is widely used in the field of wireline modems, operating at speeds of up to 56,000 bits per second, but is rarely seen on digital cellular connections, mainly because of the issue of transparency.
When a typical "modem" call is made across a digital cellular connection, it usually routes from the mobile to a modem rack in the cellular carrier's switch, which then outdials the call across the wireline network as if the call had originated from a desktop PC.
This hopping between a digital medium to the analog nature of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) means that transparent data compression is ruled out.
This is where WebOnAir enters the picture. The technology is designed to compress the data stream on-the-fly before it leaves the telecommunication carrier's switch, and is then transmitted across the digital cellular link as normal.
Once the data stream hits the PDA or notebook, the data is then decompressed, again on-the-fly, and a fast data throughput is thus achieved.
Alongside the data compression system is a graphics image simplification technology - the WebOnAir server at the cellular carrier's switch downloads and interprets the Web page, simplifies the graphics, and then compresses the data stream before transmission across the cellular data connection.
This all might sound complex, but it is transparent - essentially, mobile Web users are accessing a dynamic image of the Web pages (via the WebOnAir server), while the WebOnAir server does the actual conversion and compression.
This is no theoretical technology either, as Ericsson has already installed a WebOnAir server system on the switches of Mannesmann, one of Germany's GSM (global system for mobile communications) cellular operators.
The full name of the WebOnAir technology is WebOnAir Filter Proxy (WFP) and, as well as compressing and simplifying the Web pages, also filters out non-essential HTML (hypertext markup language) code before it is transmitted to the wireless user.
Ericsson says that its WebOnAir technology really does achieve a four-fold increase in Web page downloads, since more than 70 per cent of the data on an average Web page is graphical.
According to Magnus Andersson, Ericsson Wireless Internet's product manager, if downloads of Web pages take too long over a wireless connection, then users simply won't use the technology. With WebOnAir, however, the task is made faster, while remaining just as easy.
For users, Mr Andersson said that WebOnAir makes wireless Web browsing significantly more attractive, further supporting remote usage and wireless Internet accessibility.
Ericsson is now talking to a number of wireless operators about installing its WebOnAir technology on their switches.
For the technically minded, WebOnAir reduces the HTML code (the most common authoring language to create World Wide Web pages), for instance, white spaces, comments, and Meta tags. It also compresses and decompresses HTML files, and allows users to set the quality of images - for example, color conversion to grayscale.
The important feature of WebOnAir is that it is network independent, so apart from the initial sale to a GSM operator, it is also available for operators of TDMA (time division multiple access), CDMA (code division multiple access), and other wireless networks.
This means that the system can be used over existing data protocol systems such as Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), as well as being transparent to technologies such as the wireless markup language (WML).
Ericsson says that WebOnAir is especially designed for graphic intense wireless Web browsing on larger screens, like a laptop PC or a PDA, but also gives the same speed increase when downloading to a smaller screen mobile phone with a browser.
Brian H.
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