The mobile phone meets the Internet

Fifteen years ago mobile telephones were an exotic extravagance. Today, as cellular phones, they are often given away as freebies in support of marketing schemes and product promotions. Having become a mainstream voice communication medium, they are poised to take on new challenges, transmitting (fairly) high-speed data, video and multimedia traffic as well as voice signals to users on the move. The technology needed to tackle the challenges is known as third-generation cellular telephony. From this viewpoint, the early analog cell phones are labeled the first generation, and similar systems featuring digital radio technologies are labeled the second generation. These newer phones have appeared alongside of, and in some places have replaced, their analog forebears