3G Technology - Promises and Challenges

Introduction Imagine a situation where you are about to make an important Sales Presentation. You realize that you have brought the wrong presentation slides and you call up your colleague. She immediately emails the file to your 3G terminal and you transfer it to your laptop. Another scenario is having video-conferencing and sending character-based messages simultaneously with your clients. With 3G, the possibilities for wireless applications are numerous. For instance, imagine calling up a map in your car, conducting a video conference over wireless phones, checking e-mails, and browsing the web - wirelessly. 3G Defined 3G stands for the third generation of wireless communication technology and the industry direction are to raise speeds from 9.5K to 2M bit/sec. According to 3gnewsroom.com, devices will fall into four categories. The first category includes the basic 3G phones will be used mainly for talking and will store all their information on the network. The second category will support video-streaming, and will provide the user with news and web content. More sophisticated models will be information centres which let users download information from the Internet and store data on the device. A recent initiative by four leading handset manufacturers