The GSM association, the leading mobile phone industry body,
yesterday announced the creation of the Mobile Services Initiative
(M-Services), an initiative to enhance benefits to consumers using
GSM handsets by delivering a globally available set of services
through the mobile internet.
The Association has provide better guidance to handset
manufacturers and software developers on the needs of consumers of
mobile internet services. The M-Services Initiative is being
supported by all leading mobile manufacturers, including Nokia,
Alcatel, Ericsson, Motorola, Sagem, Samsung and Siemens.
Using open software and hardware standards, initiative hopes to
avoid problems perceived with the first attempt at a mobile
internet, the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). Although widely
adopted following over-hyped marketing, WAP is often described as
being too cumbersome for most subscribers.
The GSM association says that M-Services will allow the faster
GPRS (2.5G) networks to offer a consistently high quality of mobile
internet.
