Mobile Phone

Mobile gambling refers to gambling done on a remote wirelessly connected device. These devices can include wireless tablet PC’s, mobile phones and other non traditional mid-level networked comuting devices. Some online casinos and online poker cardrooms offer mobile options.Most mobile gambling services require a data connection to operate. The data connection is provided by the telecom provider for the region or country and may use data layer technologies such as GPRS, GSM Data, UMTS, and I-MODE. However, some services are available through an SMS text messaging interface.While still relatively underdeveloped, analysts place the value of the market space at US$20 billion by 2010. Jupiter, Gartner and Seymour Pierce all project rapid growth in the sector through to 2010.The market is still at a nascent stage at the moment, as mobile operators and brands/ media owners are currently not in a position to create this market due to the potential reputational risk. This is mainly because of the uncertain nature of most countries’ in-decision towards regulation of remote gambling online gambling.Some companies however have begun developing and testing mobile platforms to position themselves early in the anticipated growth of the market.The remote gaming market has been growing at a rate of 35% over the past 4 years and was estimated to be worth over $7 billion in 2004, the vast majority of which was internet-based. The mobile section of the gaming market only accounted for $5 million in 2004. However, industry analysts such as CCA, Juniper Research and Screen Digest estimate this grew to $1 billion in 2006.
Projected Market Value Stats:
* Asia-Pacific region is expected to contribute the largest share of total gross revenues with 39% of the market
* Europe follows closely behind with a 37% market share, with the US making up the majority of the remainder
* Telecoms analysts Juniper Research reveals that mobile lotteries will be the largest money-spinners, with gross revenues of nearly US$7.9bn worldwide by 2009, followed by sports betting (US$6.9bn) and casino-style gaming (US$4.5bn).

Mobile VoIP is the application of Voice over IP technology to mobile handsets.

There are several methodologies by which a mobile handset can be integrated into a VoIP network. One implementation turns the mobile device into a standard SIP client, which then uses a data network to send and receive SIP messaging, and to send and receive RTP for the voice path. This methodology of turning a mobile handset into a standard SIP client requires that the mobile handset support, at minimum, high speed IP communications. In this application, standard VoIP protocols (typically SIP) are used over any broadband IP-capable wireless network connection such as EVDO rev A (which is synchronously high speed - both high speed up and down), HSDPA, WiFi or WiMAX.

Another implementation of mobile integration uses a softswitch like gateway to bridge SIP and RTP into the mobile network’s SS7 infrastructure. In this implementation, the mobile handset continues to operate as it always has (as a GSM or CDMA based device), but now it can be controlled by a SIP application server which can now provide advanced SIP based services to it. Several vendors offer this kind of capability today, including Tango Networks, Outsmart, NewStep, BridgePort and BroadSoft.

Mobile VoIP will require a compromise between economy and mobility. For example, Voice over Wi-Fi offers potentially free service but is only available within the coverage area of a Wi-Fi Access Point. High speed services from mobile operators using EVDO rev A or HSDPA may have better audio quality and capabilities for metropolitan-wide coverage including fast handoffs among mobile base stations, yet it will cost more than the typical Wi-Fi-based VoIP service.

Mobile VoIP will become an important service in the coming years as device manufacturers exploit more powerful processors and less costly memory to meet user needs for ever-more ‘power in their pocket’. Smartphones in mid-2006 are capable of sending and receiving email, browsing the web (albeit at low rates) and in some cases allowing a user to watch TV.

The challenge for the mobile operator industry is to deliver the benefits and innovations of IP without losing control of the network service. Users like the Internet to be free and high speed without extra charges for visiting specific sites. Such a service challenges the most valuable service in the telecommunications industry - voice - and threatens to change the nature of the global communications industry.

Mobile dating services, also known as cell dating, cellular dating,or cell phone dating, allow individuals to chat, meet, and possibly become romantically involved by means of text messaging, mobile chatting, and the web.These services allow their users to provide information about themselves in a short profile which is stored in their phones as a dating ID. They can then search for other IDs online or by calling a certain phone number dictated by the service. The criteria include age, gender and sexual preference. Usually these sites are free to use but standard text messaging fees may still apply as well as a small fee the dating service charges per message.Mobile dating websites, in order to increase the opportunities for meeting, focus attention on users that share the same social network and proximity. Some companies even offer services such as homing devices to alert users when another user is within thirty feet of one another.Some systems involve bluetooth technology to connect users in locations such as bars and clubs. This is known as proximity dating. These systems are actually more popular in some countries in Europe and Asia than online dating.Mobile dating, or text dating websites are gaining popularity - one of the leaders in location based mobile dating is MeetMoi, http://www.meetmoi.com. According to The San Francisco Chronicle in 2005, “Mobile dating is the next big leap in online socializing.”[1] More than 3.6 million cell phone users logged into mobile dating sites in March 2007,  with most users falling in the under 35 age range.Some experts believe that the rise in mobile dating is due to the growing popularity of online dating. Analyst Brent Iadarola of Frost & Sullivan said, “I think people are more comfortable with online dating, and it’s generally been accepted, the comfort people have with online dating in the wired world is now translating to the mobile world.”Others believe it is all about choice, as Joe Brennan Jr., vice president of Webdate says, “It’s about giving people a choice. They don’t have to date on their computer. They can date on their handset, it’s all about letting people decide what path is best for them.”

A missed call is the deliberate termination of an outgoing telephone call by the caller, before the called party answers it.Missed calls can be used to notify another person of the caller’s presence or to conveniently obtain a person’s cellphone number. It can be used by one who has low credit balance or simply wishes to save money. The number of the caller is usually flashed on the screen of the callee who is using caller ID, and/or can be viewed from the missed calls list of the cellphone. Thus, the onus to call back is on the person who was called.This phenomenon is common in developing countries, particularly India, Pakistan, the Philippines and large parts of Africa, where cell phone use is increasing, but people still have to cope with the costs of calling on a regular basis. The missed call serves as a cheap way of communication for those who cannot maintain a high credit balance such as teenagers and people with low income. The Cellular Operators Association of India, COAI, has instituted a study to understand the revenue implications of the same in India.Industry estimates of loss of revenue due to this social phenomenon are 20-25%.At least one company in Bangalore is using this “tool” to generate business.Missed call, as the Philippine-adapted homonym miskol, was declared the Word of the Year in 2007 at a language convention held in the University of the Philippines, Diliman.

Although some of the less expensive models do not include an external directional antenna they are crucial to providing significant signal strength gain. This is because the antenna can be oriented and located outside to provide the best possible signal, usually aligned with the nearest cell tower. Generally speaking the larger the external antenna the better the signal - although even a small, correctly oriented external antenna should provide better signal than the internal antenna on any cell phone. These can either be fitted by professionals or will include a signal strength monitor for easy alignment.The better systems will generally include an internal monopole antenna (although the type of antenna is far from standardised) for rebroadcasting the signal internally - the advantage of using a monopole antenna is that the signal will be equally distributed in all directions (subject, of course, to attenuation from obstacles).Because all radio antennas are intrinsically polarized, cell phones perform best when their antennas are oriented parallel to the booster’s antenna - although within reasonable proximity the booster’s signal will be strong enough that the orientation of the cell phone’s antenna will not make a significant difference in usability.All modern models will include a signal amplifier. Even the cheaper home-use models now provide around 30dB gain and many of the more expensive models provide over 50dB. However, it should be noted that since the decibel scale is measured on a logarithmic scale a 30dB gain represents a one thousandfold signal power increase - meaning the total amplification of a repeater with greater than around 50dB is likely to be useless without a good, well aligned antenna. This is due to the difficulty of filtering the correct signal out from the background noise, which will be amplified equally, and the limiting maximum signal power of the amplifier (typically from around 5 dBm or 3.2 mW).

A cellular repeater, cell phone repeater, or wireless cellular signal booster, called a bi-directional amplifier (BDA) in the wireless telecommunications industry, is a device used to boost the cell phone reception to the local area by the usage of a reception antenna, a signal amplifier and an internal rebroadcast antenna. These are similar to the cellular broadcast towers used to broadcast by the network providers, but are much smaller, usually intended for use by one building. Modern cellular repeater amplifiers work by rebroadcasting cellular signals inside the building. The systems usually use an external, directional antenna to collect the best cellular signal, which is then transmitted to an amplifier unit which amplifies the signal, and retransmits it locally, providing significantly improved signal strength. The more advanced models often also allow multiple cell phones to use the same repeater at the same time, so are suitable for commercial as well as home use.The market for cellular repeaters is expected to grow rapidly in the US over the coming years. This is due to the combination of the poor network coverage in some areas, and the large scale departure from the land-line system. By 2007 the CTIA (Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association) had predicted that 30% of phone users in the US will be mobile only - more than 60 million lines. This combined with the low population density (compared with Europe and Japan); the fact that only 41% of the US population is urban; the low cell site density; and the fact that the cell network is split into over ten major provider means that many people will have to use some method to improve their home signal.Other advantages of cellular repeaters include an increase in the cell phone’s battery life and a lower level of radiation emitted by the handset - both caused by the lower power required to broadcast the signal to the local bi-directional amplifier, due to its proximity to the phone.

A mobile browser (also called a microbrowser or minibrowser) is a web browser designed for use on a mobile device such as a mobile phone or PDA. Mobile browsers are optimized so as to display Web content most effectively for small screens on portable devices. Mobile browser software must be small and efficient to accommodate the low memory capacity and low-bandwidth of wireless handheld devices. Typically they were stripped-down web browsers, but as of 2006 some mobile browsers can handle latest technologies like CSS 2.1, JavaScript and Ajax.

Though internet access “on the go” provides advantages to many, such as the ability to communicate by email with others and obtain information anywhere, the web, accessed from mobile devices, has a large number of limitations, which may vary, depending on the device. These include:

• Small screen size - This makes it difficult or impossible to see text and graphics dependent on the standard size of a desktop computer screen.
• Lack of windows - On a desktop computer, the ability to open more than one window at a time allows for multi-tasking and for easy revert to a previous page. On mobile web, only one page can be displayed at a time, and pages can only be viewed in the sequence they were originally accessed.
• Navigation - Mobile devices do not use a mouselike pointer, but rather simply an up and down function for scrolling, thereby limiting the flexibility in navigation.
• Types of pages accessible - Many sites that can be accessed on a desktop cannot on a mobile device. Many devices cannot access pages with a secured connection, Flash or other similar software, PDFs, or video sites.
• Speed - On most mobile devices, the speed of service is very slow, often slower than dial-up internet access.
• Broken pages - On many devices, a single page as viewed on a desktop is broken into segments, which are each treated as a separate page. Paired with the slow speed, navigation between these pages is slow.
• Compressed pages - Many pages, in their conversion to mobile format, are squeezed into an order different from how they would customarily be viewed on a desktop computer.
• Size of messages - Many devices have limits on the number of characters that can be sent in an email message.

In addition to the limitations of the device itself there are limitations that should be made known to users concerning the interference these devices cause in other electromagnetic technology.

The convergence of the internet and phone, in particular has caused hospitals to increase their mobile phone exclusion zones. A study by Erik van Lieshout and colleagues (Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam) has found that the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) used in modern phones can affect machines from up to 3 meters away! The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) signals, used in 3G networks, have a smaller exclusion zone of just a few centimeters. Surprisingly the worst offenders in hospitals are the doctors! (New Scientist, 15 September 2007, pg.5)

The Mobile Web primarily utilises lightweight pages written in Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML) or Wireless Markup Language (WML) to deliver content to mobile devices.New tools such as Macromedia’s Flash Lite or Sun’s J2ME enable the production of user interfaces customized for mobile devices. In any case, with the increasing movement away from website-based content towards delivery via RSS, Atom and other formats in which content is divorced from presentation, the issue of microcontent becomes less of a problem as the device rather than the content-provider is enabled to specify how the content is displayed.The .mobi sponsored top-level domain was launched specifically for the mobile internet by a consortium of companies including Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung, and Vodafone. By forcing sites to comply with mobile web standards, .mobi tries to ensure visitors a consistent and optimized experience on their mobile device. However, this domain has been criticized by several big names, including Tim Berners-Lee of the W3C, who claims that it breaks the device independence of the web:

The development of standards is one approach being implemented to improve the interoperability, usability, and accessibility issues surrounding mobile web usage.The W3C Mobile Web Initiative is a new initiative set up by the W3C to develop best practices and technologies relevant to the Mobile Web. The goal of the initiative is to make browsing the Web from mobile devices more reliable and accessible. The main aim is to evolve standards of data formats from Internet providers that are tailored to the specifications of particular mobile devices. The W3C has published guidelines (Best Practices, Best Practices Checker Software Tool) for mobile content, and is actively addressing the problem of device diversity by establishing a technology to support a repository of Device Descriptions.W3C is also developing a validating schema to assess the readiness of content for the mobile web, through its mobileOK Scheme, which will help content developers to quickly determine if their content is web-ready. The W3C guidelines and mobile OK approach have not been immune from criticism. This puts the emphasis on Adaptation, which is now seen as the key process in achieving the Ubiquitous Web, when combined with a Device Description Repository. An alternative approach is to adopt a Multi-Web Practice whereby for a given theme a set of URIs for different devices are developed with each URI having content appropriate to its designated device. A bookmark for this set of URIs held in an array is known as an AGI (Array of Graphic Identifiers)mTLD, the registry for .mobi, has released a free testing tool called the MobiReady Report to analyze the mobile readiness of website. It does a free page analysis and gives a Mobi Ready score. This report tests the mobile-readiness of the site using industry best practices & standards.Other standards for the mobile web are being documented and explored for particular applications by interested industry groups, such as the use of the mobile web for the purpose of education and training e.g. Standards for M-Learning Project.