The last few years or so have seen two great revolutions in communications mobile and the Internet. The Internet phenomenon is actually much wider than just being able to browse the World Wide Web and send e-mail from a home PC it is really a complete data technology revolution. There is the prospect that IP technologies will be able to integrate the networking of all future applications and services when a QoS enabled IP infrastructure is developed and deployed. Current mobile systems, however, overwhelmingly offer a single service voice. They are more usefully compared to the Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN) than IP networks. However, with the launch of so-called third generation (3G) mobile over the next year or so users will be able to access the Internet, including corporate e-mail and so forth, from high bandwidth, quality-enabled, mobile links. The combination of mobile and Internet technologies/applications is considered by many industry commentators to be the next great communication revolution.

Inspec keywords: IP networks; quality of service; electronic mail; Web sites; Internet; mobile computing; 3G mobile communication

Other keywords: Internet; telecommunication quality of service management; third generation mobile communication; quality-enabled mobile link; world wide Web; QoS; 3G mobile communication; IP technology; public switched telephony network; e-mail; PSTN

Subjects: Mobile radio systems