GPRS To Lead Wireless Revolution, not 3G

date: 14th March 2001, source by: News Bytes

While Australia's third-generation (3G) wireless spectrum auction gets under way Thursday, it will be up to four years before 3G services are widely deployed, Gartner research director Geoff Johnson forecast yesterday.

He pointed to a better near-term future for GPRS (a "2.5G" service) mobile packet services, which would boost performance at much less expense.

He was speaking at a media briefing, ahead of Gartner's Wireless Web and Mobile Business conference, which runs through Wednesday and Thursday at Sydney's Darling Harbour convention center.

He said that, unlike today's under-utilized wireless application protocol (WAP) services, GPRS would offer "always-on" service, and see business users, rather than consumers, driving revenue.

While connection speeds would become only marginally better, low latency in GPRS would greatly improve the user experience with applications.

Ken Dulaney, Gartner's vice president of mobile "gadgets", told the reptiles there would be a huge explosion in mobile devices, with no single "converged" device, or single standard, likely to emerge as a "holy grail".

He predicted a big future for the radio-based Bluetooth short-distance wireless technology, however - and suggested a future scenario when a user might wear a radio transmitter on his or her belt, receiving mobile signals and re-sending to a variety of low-cost "multi-piece" mobile devices via Bluetooth.

Nine Gartner analysts will speak at the Wireless Web and Mobile Business event, with the theme of sifting reality and opportunity from vendor hype.

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