Are you a person who use GPRS a lot, using a normal 2.75G+ phone (Not Smart phones)? Getting a huge GPRS bill? Looking to reduce your GPRS bill? Then this post is for you:)
These days many of us use GPRS a lot in our day to day life. So if we can get done our work with less data cost it will automatically reduce the GPRS bill. If you are a frequent reader of my blog, you may remember that I promised to share my Mobile Internet experiences. So here I'm going to keep that promise.

First I'll start with mentioning my Test Environment.I'm usually using a SonyEricsson K800i phone to access mobile internet. Here and there I've used Nokia 3G and Motorolla phones as well.

Mobile Web Browsers to Use

I'm using Opera Mini. It is much faster than the default mobile web browsers I've used. And even it loads any normal web page faster. "SE K800i comes with a full Internet browser, so you can access almost all normal web pages, and not just mobile-specific ones". But NOT ALL. For example, normally my blog is not loaded in the SEK800i default web browser. Even if it loads, some content is missing saying that "Large page. Content incompletely shown." (Just now i checked, and no post content was shown). But when I'm using Opera Mini, it is loaded completely and much faster.
Of course, as I mentioned above, data consumption is very important when it comes to Mobile Internet. When I tried few times, normally a default mobile web browser consumed about 400+kB, but with Opera Mini it's only about 35kBs. Wow! it's almost about 90% data cost saving.
To get to know about the technology behind these abilities and more about Opera Mini click here
Further in SEk800i you can't launch another application except the quick launch music player. But when using Opera Mini, you can minimize the browser and launch another application such as a chat application. So chat while surfing internet, both on mobile cool!


Use All in One Chat Applications

You can use All in One Mobile Chat Applications to keep connected with your loved ones, on the go. But it should be a cost saving one too. I'm using Mobile eBuddy as my Mobile Chat App. It supports to almost all the phone types and consume less data too. You can chat with your MSN, Yahoo, AIM, GTalk, ICQ, Facebook at once. And you can view a short profile too. Isn't that great? (Additionally the application says that you can send pictures while chatting but I tried it few times, but it didn't work:|)

Download eBuddy to your mobile

Use of Email Applications for Mobile

It's also an efficient way to reduce data cost. Gmail app worked for my phone, but Yahoo Go didn't work. My phone doesn't allow it to be downloaded. But it's not that much of a problem for me as Opera Mini works really fine.

I must say, 'the session fee', when connecting through GPRS can be a barrier to use multiple applications. My mobile service provider doesn't charge a session fee, so luckily I have that freedom:)

To conclude this post, I would like to say that there are plenty of cool applications other than the ones I have mentioned. So do some search, and test them and let others know your experience.

I had to spend some bucks when testing these apps again for this post:)) But I think it's worthwhile. Isn't it?

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I had the opportunity of doing a presentation at the November Student Champ meeting on Beyond 3rd Generation Mobile Communications. Here I'm providing a brief description and additional information related to the content of that presentation.

Beyond 3rd Generation (B3G) - Step in to the Next Generation of Mobile Communication

The mobile communication is one of the areas that has been rapidly developed in the recent past few decades. Incredible information Technology/Internet boom during the last 2 decades has allowed users to demand improved wireless and mobile data services. Estimations on increasing users’ expectations and growing demand for mobile services urge that around the year 2010-2012 another new mobile network system will be needed, with improved capability than 3G or International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000) which is believed not sufficient to cope with users demand around 2010. The development of mobile communication has given much more convenience on human activities on day to day life. This improvement has made lots of difference in the community.

What is Beyond 3rd Generation or B3G in short? It is the term used to describe the next generation's mobile communication, which is commonly referred as 4G.Up to now there is no formal definition for what 4G is. So the researches done goes under the term Beyond 3rd Generation.

However without attractive services at a reasonable price, B3G cannot help but lose the chance to develop a mobile network market. B3G should be able to continue and expand the existing services while providing high-tech applications for the next generation of mobile users. Internet infotainment, Games over the mobile network, Location based services, Mobile window shopping will be some of the killer applications. Mobile service providers will have to provide personalized services to keep loyal customer base. In order to cater to these requirements more advanced technologies should be developed, such as High speed & large-capacity wireless transmission technologies, High performance and advanced function terminal technologies etc.

Many leading companies are trying hard to become the leader of the next generation of mobile communications, while diversifying their businesses in to new segments. Companies like Apple has hugely succeeded with their business diversification. Eg : Apple iPhone

So the world is waiting to see the next generation's abilities. I'm pretty sure that it will change human life style a lot. And finally let's hope for an enriched, convenient & a comfortable life for all through these technology advancements.

Download the presentation here : B3G - Presentation.pdf

PS : If you are looking for more info on this topic you can contact me.

Update : I wrote an article about "Beyond 3rd Generation (B3G) - Step in to the Next Generation of Mobile Communication" for the DIGIT, the IT magazine. Check it out!

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Japan's largest mobile operator NTT DoCoMo is the latest entrant to Indian mobile market by buying a 26% stake in Tata Teleservices for a whopping 2.7 billion $. This deal pegs the valuation of Tata Tele over 10 billion $. Currently the userbase of Tata Teleservices is pegged at 30 million subscribers.

This is the third deal of an international telecom company entering India with a stake in an Indian company. Earlier UAE's Etisalat bought 45% stake in Swan Tele for 900 million $ while 60% stake in Unitech Wireless (which had a telecom license across India) was acquired by Norway's Telenor for 1.27 billion $.

DoCoMo is known for its VAS revenue in Japanese markets and its innovations with technology and content services when it comes to mobile. It remains to be seen whether with the advent of 3G and this acquisition there is any impact on the mobile VAS market. Keep in mind that Tata Tele is a CDMA player and CDMA players would be technologically ahead of GSM players in terms of time required to roll out 3G services as their existing network can support 3G.

Source : www.watblog.com

Read the press release article here

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