NEW YORK-By 2000, some 22 million devices other than personal computers will be accessing the Internet, according to IDC-Link Resources projections cited at a recent Internet World ’97 conference.
Although wireless industry representatives and analysts are predicting a bright future for data communications, use of the Internet for information access and electronic commerce still is in its infancy, with delivery speed, screen display and security issues still unresolved.
The Internet was developed with the personal computer in mind, not tiny wireless telephones and pagers. Heavily formatted content initially designed for the PC may take too long to download or may be illegible on small-screen nonPC devices, which typically have slow connection speeds, said Michael Sikillian, product manager for Spyglass Inc., Cambridge, Mass.
Web site developers can tailor their sites for different devices, but the complexity and time-consuming nature of this design conversion process means it isn’t likely to happen soon, if at all, he said. To do an end run around this obstacle, Spyglass recently developed Prism, a content conversion solution for adapting PC-formatted Web content for pagers, cellular phones, personal digital assistants and other devices.
But there is one big problem, even with this approach. Its conversion capability depends on a “user agent string,” a signal from the device identifying what kind it is and what it can do. Most wireless handset manufacturers, which operate on lower profit margins that PC makers, haven’t included a user agent string in their phones, Sikillian said.
The inherent limits of battery technology impose another constraint that is expanding the disparity between wired and wireless devices, said Aneesh Shrikhande, manager of developer marketing for Unwired Planet, Redwood Shores, Calif.
“We decided to create a Web browser for wireless devices that moves the Internet model from static to dynamic query and response. It’s a handheld uplink server suite that translates between wired and unwired.”
Unwired Planet didn’t opt for the standard HyperText Mark-up Language front end in personal computers because, he said, “without a mouse, HTML can’t be shrunk down to phone size and still be usable.”
More than the inadequacy of formatting and transmission speeds are a problem today with Internet services provision to wireless devices today, Shrikhande said.
“Existing Web services take two to three weeks to bring information to the phone. Most Web content is completely inappropriate for cellular phones, which need high value, location independent, rapidly changing information, like stock prices and maps.”
Carriers like Bell Atlantic Mobile and GTE Mobilnet are working on vertical solutions to this problem that involve replacing proprietary hardware and software, Shrikhande said. Unwired Planet, he added, also is working with handset manufacturers, like Samsung Telecommunications America Inc. and Mitsubishi Wireless Communications Inc., to put Web browsing functions into their phones.
Security is another major concern as wireless electronics devices tap the Internet.
“Because of their size, it isn’t very good,” Sikillian said. “Smart cards are an attractive means of security, in some ways, very good.”
As the functionality of Internet access in wireless and wireline devices moves toward electronic commerce, however, security can easily be compromised, said David Naccache, security and cryptography group manager for Gemplus Corp. France-based Gemplus is a world leader in design and production of smart cards, also known as subscriber identity module, or SIM, cards.
“Combinations of individually secure building blocks are not necessarily secure,” Naccache said at a recent UBS Securities L.L.C. conference on Information Security and Electronic Commerce.
To date, Naccache characterized solutions offered for this problem as following the rule of an old French proverb: “When the only tool around is a hammer, everything else looks like nails.”
Internet commerce will be a $4 billion market by 2000, according to projections mentioned by Michael L. Schneider, a partner at Maloff Group International, New Haven, Conn., at the Internet World ’97 conference.
“Smart cards connect the Internet with the nonconnected, off-line environment. These changes (i.e., the move toward electronic commerce) will be more than happened with the introduction of the PC.”
