Typical uses of SMS include notifying a mobile phone owner of a voicemail message, alerting a

salesperson of an inquiry and telling a driver the address of the next pickup.

SMS TECHNOLOGY

SMS is essentially similar to paging, but SMS messages do not require the mobile phone to be
active and within range, as they will be held for a number of days until the phone is active and
within range. SMS messages are transmitted within the same cell or to anyone with roaming
capability. They can also be sent to digital phones from a web site equipped with a PC Link or
from one digital phone to another. An SMS gateway is a web site that lets you enter an SMS
message to someone within the cell served by that gateway or acts as an international gateway
for users with roaming capability.

The SMS is a store and forward service. In other words, short messages are not sent directly
from sender to recipient, but via an SMS Center. Each mobile telephone network that supports
SMS has one or more messaging centers to handle and manage the short messages.

The SMS features confirmation of message delivery. This means that, unlike paging, users do
not simply send a short message and trust and hope that it gets delivered. Instead the sender of
the short message can receive a return message back notifying them whether the short message
has been delivered or not.

Short messages can be sent and received simultaneously with GSM (Global System for Mobile
Communications) voice, data and fax calls. This is possible because whereas voice, data and fax
calls take over a dedicated radio channel for the duration of the call, short messages travel over
and above the radio channel using the signaling path. As such, users of SMS rarely, if ever, get a
busy or engaged signal as they can do during peak network usage times.

Ways of sending multiple short messages are available. SMS concatenation (stringing several
short messages together) and SMS compression (getting more than 160 characters of information
within a single short message) have been defined and incorporated in the GSM SMS standards.

The network operator needs to purchase its first generation SMS Center as part of the network
commissioning plan. The initial SMS Center may simply be a voice mail platform module or a
stand-alone SMS Center. It is not possible to make the SMS available without an SMS Center
since all short messages pass through the SMS Center.

The Short Message Service (SMS) allows text messages to be sent and received to
and from mobile telephones. The text can comprise words or numbers or an
alphanumeric combination. SMS was created as part of the GSM Phase 1 standard.
The first short message is believed to have been sent in December 1992 from a PC
to a mobile phone on the Vodafone GSM network in the UK. Each short message is
up to 160 characters in length when Latin alphabets are used, and 70 characters in
length when non-Latin alphabets such as Arabic and Chinese are used.
The introduction of more user-friendly terminals contributes to increases in messaging usage.
Terminals such as smart phones make it easier for users to originate, reply to and otherwise
access messaging services through the provision of a QWERTY keyboard, rather than the limited
keypad on standard mobile phones.

WAP basics
What is WAP anyway? Basically, WAP is a global standard developed by the WAP
Forum for wireless devices to access the Internet and telephony services. WAP can
also be used to access data from corporate intranets through public or private IP
networks

WAP specifications
WAP is an open specification that defines a set of protocols in application, session,
transaction, security, and transport layers. To leverage existing programming and
development skills, it is based on existing standards and protocols such as XML,
HTTP, UDP, HTML, and JavaScript.

Compared to PCs, wireless devices are limited in terms of processing power,

memory, battery life, and display size. Other issues of low bandwidth, latency, and
connection stability motivated the forum to come up with a new set of WAP
standards. They have reused many of the existing standards while creating new
extensions to address the above-mentioned problems. The new WAP specifications
leverage the existing investment in hardware, software, applications, and
development skills.
WAP incorporates a simple microbrowser, designed to work on the limited platforms of mobile
handsets, with a central WAP gateway that performs the more processor-heavy operations. It
defines a standard for data transmission to the handset, WDP (WAP datagram protocol), which is
a variation of the internet standard transmission protocol, HTTP (Hypertext Transport Protocol),
but redesigned for wireless network characteristics. WDP mostly differs from HTTP by stripping
out much of the text information, replacing it with more efficient binary information for the low-
bandwidth connection. The WAP data can be sent over any available network, be it the circuit-
switched connection of TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) IS-136 or packet-switched
GPRS.

Added to this core transmission protocol are several scalable layers that can develop
independently. The wireless transport layer security (WTLS) layer adds optional encryption
facilities that enable secure transactions. WTP (WAP transaction protocol) adds transaction
support, adding to the datagram service of WPD, while WSP (WAP session protocol) allows
efficient data exchange between applications.

WAP also defines an application environment (WAE) that enables third-party developers to
develop more advanced services and applications, along with the microbrowser used to access
web pages on the handset itself.

To access internet content, the user's handset sends a request to the WAP gateway, which
retrieves the information in either HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) or WML (Wireless
Markup Language) from the host server. WML is a variation of HTML, designed specifically to
enable viewing on the limited mobile terminal platform. If the information retrieved is in HTML,
a filter in the gateway will attempt to convert it to WML. The information will then be
transmitted to the handset over whatever network is available, using the transmission protocols
described above.

In some cases, where HTML data is generated using a style sheet to convert XML data using an
XSL processor, a WML style sheet can be added to the system to generate seamless information
in the correct format for wireless viewing.

What is Bluetooth ?

Bluetooth is a high-speed, low-power microwave wireless link technology, designed to connect

phones, laptops, PDAs and other portable equipment together with little or no work by the user.

Bluetooth is the name for a short-range radio frequency (RF) technology that operates at 2.4 GHz
and is capable of transmitting voice and data. The effective range of Bluetooth devices is 32 feet
(10 meters). Bluetooth transfers data at the rate of 1 Mbps, which is from three to eight times the
average speed of parallel and serial ports, respectively. It is also known as the IEEE 802.15
standards. It was invented to get rid of wires. Bluetooth is more suited for connecting two point-
to-point devices, whereas Wi-Fi is an IEEE standard intended for networking.
Why is the technology called Bluetooth

The heart of the Bluetooth brand identity is the name, which refers to the Danish king Harald
"Bluetooth" Blaatand who unified Denmark and Norway. In the beginning of the Bluetooth
wirelesstechnology era, Bluetooth was aimed at unifying the telecom and computing industries.

Bluetooth can be used to wirelessly synchronize and transfer data among devices. Bluetooth can
be thought of as a cable replacementtechnology. Typical uses include automatically
synchronizing contact and calendar information among desktop, notebook and palmtop
computers without connecting cables. Bluetooth can also be used to access a network or the
Internet with a notebook computer by connecting wirelessly to a cellular phone.

GPRS is a cellular networking service that supports WAP, SMS text messaging, and other data
communications. GPRS technology is integrated into so-called 2.5G mobile phones designed to
provide faster data transfer speeds than older 2G cellular networks.

An always-on packet switching service, mobile Internet providers have offered GPRS together
with voice subscription packages for several years. Customers originally paid for GPRS service
according to how much network bandwidth they used in sending and receiving data, but an
increasing number of providers now offer flat-rate unlimited use packages.

GPRS is a slower alternative to EDGE 2.5G cellular networking. GPRS supports theoretical data
rates up to 171 Kbps compared to the 473 Kbps speed of EDGE.