I would tend to disagree, working for a
communications
company that specializes in working with
multinationals
and dealing with the associated infrastrucures in
foriegn countries I have found that in many countries
it is not financially feasible, nor geagraphically
feasible to try to create the kind of communications
infrastructure in place that we enjoy in some of the
more industrialized countries. For some countries it
is more feasible for people to use mobile technology
than to try to put in place the fiber, and copper
necessary to allow them to communicate using some of
what might be called the more traditional methods.
WAP, and mobile technology is a necessary component to
the future of the global economy.
Regards, Alan
--- Anthony Atkielski <anthony(_at_)atkielski(_dot_)com> wrote:
I don't understand why so much effort is expended on
things like WAP when
99% of the real world still doesn't have any access
at all to the Internet,
much less wireless access. And even of those who
do, most have such slow
connections that even download a simple test page is
an ordeal.
I know it's not very sexy to drop the blue-sky toys,
but doesn't anyone ever
work on improving and democratizing existing
infrastructure instead of
widening the gap between what people really have and
what looks cool in the
lab?
-- Anthony
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Crowcroft" <J(_dot_)Crowcroft(_at_)cs(_dot_)ucl(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk>
To: "'IETF Mailing List'" <ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2000 09:10
Subject: Re: WAP - What A Problem...
a technical discussion worth reading is at
http://www.osopinion.com/Opinions/MikeBanahan/MikeBanahan1.html
it would seeem (as i've suspected for a while)
that the community in
charge of this development has the same problem as
the guy who built
jurassic park - they haev no discipline, or
understanding of computing
and the software/jhardware interface tradeoffs -
this is qutie a
common problem in communications work - people
come from one side of
the tracks (either jsut software or just
engineering, or ust plain
theory) - systems architecture is hard stuff, but
there is little
point standing on the toes of giants, when its
possible to stand on
their shoulders....it both ends of the problem
space, whether
application level and devising new markup
languages for restricted
display, or low level work in customising
protocol stacks for resource scarce environments
, there is a body of
public work out there, and of researchers who are
willing to
cosntructively critique proposals provided they
are carried out in a
public way with optimally zero cost for access to
early drafts, but
at least low entry cost - it is also a good idea
to let those wacky
media lab types get their hands on hardware
prototypes, since they
will (as william gibson puts it) "find a street
use for things" - its
instructive to see how wavelan and its cousins
have fared so well
after being handed over to the ietf - if we'd have
PCMCIA GSM and GPRS
(and bluetooth) cards, despite battery power or
other clunkiness
problems, we might haev made less of a dogs dinner
of things...(when i
say we, i mean the interdisciplinary, apparently
unstructured, but
actually highly organised force that will fit
anything to IP, and not
vice versa)
give me a level long enough and we can moev the
earth - give the wrong
end of the same level to the wrong people and they
can crush a
diamond.
j.
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