May 1999
Progress in the phone world continues unabated. As the GSM Association announces 1 billion "G-Mail" (SMS) messages and everyone looks forward to the new WAP phones, High Speed data is now being offered by some network vendors and GPRS is just around the corner.
To the architects of the original GSM system this is all good news, but they have always been focused a little beyond the immediate horizon and many of them now have to concentrate on the necessary pieces of the puzzle for Third Generation systems. It's quite amazing just how many "interest groups", "standards bodies" and so on are developing new technology between companies for things associated with mobile phones or the Internet. The telecomms world is going through an upheaval
Kevin Holley