Phones & .NET
Figure out how to leverage the existing "2G" infrastructure and yet get the speeds and reliability that businesses and consumers are crying out for.
by Andy Harding
One of the most exciting and least explored areas of the Windows Embedded arena is the digital phone market. This is an area that is dominated by companies other than Microsoft and is therefore of great interest to Microsoft. It is also a tricky and undecided market with many new technologies emerging that are trying to replace the existing ones with "better faster stronger" solutions. In this market innovation and creativity meld with the hardware manufacturers more than the software developers, but the software manufacturers provide the lifeblood, the digital communications.
So where does that leave those developing solutions to help their enterprises grow and do business more effectively? What can .NET bring to the table that Nokia, Ericsson, and Motorola do not? Does the more disparate model of Web services lend itself to the mobile phones and devices that are now coming out that allow you to do business completely wireless? How can you take advantage of the Internet and its new untethered dimensions? How will you fare in this new race to get rid of the wiring?
The first large hurdle that you bump into is the slow nature of the current crop of digital phones, the second-generation or "2G" network phones. These phones work great for voice but are capable only of speeds around 9600 baud for data communications. The solutions designed around these limitations like WAP have likewise proven to be slow and unwieldy. They do use a digital data stream rather than older analog technology but running at 9600 baud makes your Web service run more like a scooter than the well-tuned Formula 1 racer you promised your boss.
The most obvious step is to move up the generational ladder to "3G" networks and phones. In the new generation of phone service, we have been promised always-on network connections that run up to 384 Kbps. These "3G" pipes are certainly large enough to handle video conferencing as well as any Web surfing and multimedia e-mail-type applications. You could certainly get that Formula 1 performance here, except that no one has built the "3G" race track for you yet. And these newer networks are almost a complete overhaul of the existing networks rendering current multibillion dollar investments mostly useless while asking for more multibillion dollar investments. Do not hold your breath for this one yet.
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