Thus spake "Brijesh Kumar" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 1. A WAP phone without an IP address is not an Internet device. And,
> no one claims so.
The telcos who offer WAP service (at least in my town) market it as
"Wireless Internet Access". They do not advertise it as "wireless
application-proxy-based access to certain web pages", which is what
they're really selling.
> 2. A WAP device can have both IP and non-IP addresses. So a WAP
> device could be an Internet device at one time and non-Internet device
> a bit later (at least in theory).
If it speaks IP, it's Internet. None of the WAP phones I've used or
seen so far speak IP.
> 3. An IP address is not very useful on most mobile (cellular) devices.
With the current billing model of per-minute connection charges and slow
speeds, it's not useful. The economics just aren't there for the
consumer.
If the business model were different, it could definitely be useful --
if my laptop had fast, always-on wireless IP access at a reasonable
price, I'd never go to the office.
> A lot of useful services and applications can be provided without IP
> on the wireless devices. That includes sending and receiving mails
> to/from the Internet, and limited web browsing via proxy gateways.
Agreed. Those services are useful, and they can be done without IP --
it's just not Internet.
Let's not forget one of the most significant reasons the Internet was
created was to eliminate the need for network-based application
gateways. In this context, WAP devices are anti-Internet.
> 4. Wireless web access using IP is already here, but very few bother
> to use it. Networks with the ability to handle IP traffic such as CDPD
> have traditionally very low (as per my info, under 15% or so) capacity
> utilization and just about every network is under utilized, and in big
> loss situation, so much for IP access in wireless devices. At the same
> time GSM SMS which needs no IP addressing has a tremendous
> demands. So go figure out utility and economics of IP addresses in
> wireless devices for now.
See above.
S
| | Stephen Sprunk, K5SSS, CCIE #3723
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