Mobile Phone Technology Terms

1G
In mobile telephony, first-generation systems were analog, circuit-switched. Voice links were poor, handoff unreliable, capacity low, and security non-existent. 1G systems are not now under active development – indeed, in some areas 1G spectrum is being auctioned for 2G and 3G use. This Standard is originated in 1980's.

2G
In mobile telephony, second-generation protocols use digital encoding and include GSM, D-AMPS (TDMA) and CDMA. 2G networks are in current use around the world. These protocols support high bit rate voice and limited data communications. They offer auxiliary services such as data, fax and SMS. Most 2G protocols offer different levels of encryption.

2.5G
In mobile telephony, 2.5G protocols extend 2G systems to provide additional features such as packet-switched connection (GPRS) and enhanced data rates (HSCSD, EDGE).

3G
In mobile telephony, third-generation protocols support much higher data rates, measured in Mbps, intended for applications other than voice. 3G networks trials started in Japan in 2001. 3G networks are expected to be starting in Europe and part of Asia/Pacific by 2002, and in the US later. 3G will support bandwidth-hungry applications such as full-motion video, video-conferencing and full Internet access. www.3gpp.org

AMPS
Advanced Mobile Phone System: a 1G standard which operates in the 800-900MHz-frequency band. It is still widely used in the United States.

Analog
The simple way to transmit speech, which is translated into electronic signals of different frequency and/or amplitude. The first networks for mobile phones, as well as broadcast transmissions, were analog. Due to being longer established in some countries, analog networks may offer better coverage than digital networks, however analog phones are less secure and suffer more from interference where the signal is weak. Analog systems include AMPS, NMT and ETACS.

API
Historically, "application programming interface". Practically, an API is any interface that enables one program to use facilities provided by another, whether by calling that program, or by being called by it. At a higher level still, an API is a set of functionality delivered by a programming system, and as such the mix of APIs in a particular system tells you what that system can do.

Bluetooth
An open specification for seamless wireless short-range communications of data and voice between both mobile and stationary devices. For instance, it specifies how mobile phones, computers and PDAs interconnect with each other, with computers, and with office or home phones. The first generation of Bluetooth permits exchange of data up to a rate of 1 Mbps per second, even in areas with much electromagnetic disturbance. It transmits and receives via a short-range radio link using a globally available frequency band (2.4 GHz ISM band).

bps
Bits per second: a way of quantifying data transmission throughput. It is the number of pieces of information (bits) transmitted or received per second.

CDMA
Code Division Multiple Access: a digital wireless telephony transmission technique.
1. CDMA allows multiple frequencies to be used simultaneously (Spread Spectrum). The CDMA idea was originally developed for military use over 30 years ago.
2. The CDMA standards used for second-generation mobile telephony are the IS-95 standards championed by QUALCOMM.

Content Provider
A company that provides services to mobile phone users or network operators. These services could be shopping, web surfing, chat rooms, playing games, accessing data such as music and books through a server.

D-AMPS
Digital AMPS (Digital-Advanced Mobile Phone Service) is the digital wireless standard widely used throughout the Americas, Asia Pacific and other areas. D-AMPS uses digital TDMA on the one hand, and is required to be compatible with installed AMPS base station networks on the other. D-AMPS operates on the 800 and 1900 MHz bands.

Digital
A way of encoding information. On digital networks, data doesn't need to go though the extra step of being converted to an analog signal, voice is sampled and coded in a way similar to how it is recorded on a CD. Digital networks are fast replacing analog ones as they offer improved sound quality, secure transmission and can handle data directly as well as voice. Digital networks include mobile systems GSM, D-AMPS, CDMA, TDMA and UMTS.

Dual band
Dual band mobile phones can work on networks that operate on different frequency bands. This is useful if you move between areas covered by different networks. Some networks operate on two bands, for instance GSM-1800 in town centers and GSM-900 in the rest of the country.

Dual mode
Dual mode mobile phones have more than one air interface and hence can work on more than one network. One example is phones that operate on both digital and analog networks. They are quite useful if you want the advantages of a digital phone, but regularly visit areas where analog is the only service available.

EDGE
Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution. An enhanced modulation technique designed to increase network capacity and data rates in GSM networks. EDGE should provide data rates up to 384 Kbps. EDGE will let operators without a 3G license to compete with 3G networks offering similar data services. EDGE is not expected before 2001 at the earliest.

GPRS
General Packet Radio Service: a radio technology for GSM networks that adds packet-switching protocols, shorter set-up time for ISP connections, and offer the possibility to charge by amount of data sent rather than connect time. GPRS promises to support flexible data transmission rates typically up to 20 or 30 Kbps (with a theoretical maximum of 171.2 Kbps), as well as continuous connection to the network. A 2.5G enhancement to GSM, GPRS is the most significant step towards 3G, needing similar business model, and service and network architectures. GPRS started to appear in some networks during 2000.

GSM
Global System for Mobile communications, the most widely used digital mobile phone system and the de facto wireless telephone standard in Europe. Originally defined as a pan-European open standard for a digital cellular telephone network to support voice, data, text messaging and cross-border roaming. GSM is now one of the world's main 2G digital wireless standards. GSM is present in more than 160 countries and according to the GSM Association, accounts for approximately 70 percent of the total digital cellular wireless market. GSM is a time division multiplex (TDM) system. Implemented on 800, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz frequency bands.

GSM Gateway
A mobile phone device thats takes a single SIM card or multiple SIMS and provides a telecoms interface - either Analogue (FXO/FXS) to allow connection to Analogue trunk of a Telephone System (or to allow a standard telephone to connect directly), ISDN Interfaces such as ISDN2e and ISDN30 for connection to ISDN telephone systems and VOIP interfaces to allow the gateway to connect to a Voice Over IP network. The GSM Gateway enables these traditional telephony devices to connect directly to the mobile phone network, usually providing the user with access to cheaper call rates. (see www.gsmsave.co.uk )

HSCSD
High Speed Circuit Switched Data: dedicated circuit-switched data communications technology for GSM which boosts data throughput up to 14.4 Kbps in a single channel, and by aggregating channels, up to 57.6 Kbps. An asymmetrical service can be offered where, for instance, one channel is allocated for the uplink and several are aggregated for the downlink. HSCSD can provide a fixed bit rate (transparent mode) or a variable one (non-transparent mode). In most cases HSCSD is available to network operators as a pure software upgrade. HSCSD started to appear in some networks in 1999.

IMT-2000
International Mobile Telecommunications-2000: term used by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for the specification for projected third-generation wireless services. Formerly referred to as FPLMTS, Future Public Land-Mobile Telephone Systems.

i-mode
Proprietary packet-based information service for mobile phones. i-mode delivers information (such as mobile banking, and train timetable) to mobile phones and enables exchange of email from handsets on the PDC-P network. Launched in 1999 by NTT DoCoMo, i-mode is very popular in Japan (especially for email and transfer of icons), but is not currently being used elsewhere,

IrDA
1. A suite of protocols for infrared (IR) exchange of data between two devices, up to 1 or 2 meters apart (20 to 30 cm for low-power devices). IrDA devices typically have throughput of up to either 115.2 Kbps or 4 Mbps. IrDA protocols are implemented in Symbian OS phones, many PDAs, printers and laptop computers.
2. The Infrared Data Association, the industry body that specifies IrDA protocols, originally founded by Hewlett-Packard and others.

Java
Industry standard object-oriented language and virtual machine, invented by Sun Microsystems and formally released in 1996. Java is an ideal language for network applications and applets. Sun's Java specifications include many Java APIs and platforms, including the JavaPhone API and PersonalJava platform, which are included in Symbian OS.

Kernel
Core of an operating system, a kernel manages the machine's hardware resources (including the processor and the memory), and provides and controls the way any other software component can access these resources. The kernel runs with a higher privilege than other programs (so-called user-mode programs). The power and robustness of an OS's kernel play a major role in shaping overall system design and reliability.

Network operator
Company with a license to provide wireless telephony services.

OS
Operating System: historically, the minimal set of software needed to manage a device's hardware capability and share it between application programs. Practically, "OS" is now used to mean all software including kernel, device drivers, comms, graphics, data management, GUI framework, system shell application, and utility applications. This would define Windows, Palm OS and MacOS as operating systems. Symbian provides an operating system – Symbian OS – tailored for data-enabled mobile phones.

OPL
A BASIC-like programming language, for rapid application development, used on Symbian OS.

Packet-switching
Technique whereby the information (voice or data) to be sent is broken up into packets, of at most a few KB each, which are then routed by the network between different destinations based on addressing data within each packet. Use of network resources is optimized, as the resources are needed only during the handling of each packet. This is an ideal model for ad hoc data communication, and works well also for voice, video and other streamed data. Mobile phones with packet-switched communication appear to be "always connected" to the data network, whereas in the case of circuit-switched connections, setup time takes around 30 seconds to connect from a mobile phone to an ISP. Use of packet-switched network can be charged according to the volume of data transferred and not to any notion of time spent online.

Platform
A set of technology, which acts as a foundation for real-world applications, or higher-level platforms. Symbian OS includes C++ APIs, a leading Java implementation, an application suite and integration with wireless and other communications protocols.

Polyphonic Ringtones
Todays poly ringtones are almost as good as the original records, the quality gets better all the time due to continuous improvement in mobile phone audio technology. Most modern mobile phones with play 16 track tunes. Whilst the early mobile phones that would only play monophonic sounds are still around it is only a matter of time before all mobile phone manufacturers produce handsets that play polyphonic tones. Polytones sound good and most hits are available to be transmitted in stereo to give up to 40 different notes playing at a time.

Service provider
A company that provides mobile phone users with services and subscriptions to mobile phone networks.

SIM
Subscriber Identity Module. The SIM card is the smart card inserted inside all GSM phones. It identifies the user account to the network, handles authentication and provides data storage for basic user data and network information. It may also contain some applications that run on a compatible phone (SIM Application Toolkit).

Smartphone
A generic name for voice centric mobile phones with information capability. The Ericsson R380 Smartphone is an example of such a Symbian OS phone.

SMS
Short Message Service: available on digital GSM networks allowing text messages of up to 160 characters to be sent and received via the network operator's message center to your mobile phone, or from the Internet, using a so-called "SMS gateway" website. If the phone is powered off or out of range, messages are stored in the network and are delivered at the next opportunity.

Symbian OS
Symbian's advanced open standard operating system for data enabled mobile phones. It includes a multi-tasking multithreaded core, a user interface framework, data services enablers, application engines and integrated PIM functionality and wireless communications.

TDMA
1. Time Division Multiple Access: a digital wireless telephony transmission technique. TDMA allocates each user a different time slot on a given frequency. GSM, D-AMPS, PDC and DECT use TDMA in one form or another. 2. A name generally used for D-AMPS. TDMA networks are operated in the US, Latin America, New Zealand, parts of Russia and Asia Pacific.

UMTS
Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service, part of the IMT-2000 initiative, is a 3G standard supporting a theoretical data throughput of up to 2 Mbps. First trials started in 2001. It should be rolled out in most of the world by 2005.

Unicode
A 16-bit character encoding scheme allowing characters from Western European, Eastern European, Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Urdu, Hindi and all other major world languages, living and dead, to be encoded in a single character set. The Unicode specification also includes standard compression schemes and a wide range of typesetting information required for worldwide locale support. Symbian OS fully implements Unicode.

VGA
Video Graphics Array: “standard” screen size of 640 by 480 pixels.

WCDMA
Wide-band CDMA: a CDMA protocol originated by NTT DoCoMo and now adopted for third-generation use by ETSI in Europe. WCDMA supports very high-speed multimedia services such as full-motion video, Internet access and video conferencing.

WAP
1. Wireless Application Protocol: a set of communication protocol standards to make accessing online services from a mobile phone simple. 2. WAP was conceived by four companies: Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, and Unwired Planet (today called Phone.com). The WAP Forum is an industry association with over 200 members. Symbian is a full member of the WAP Forum.

Free Software and Open Source

Free software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also do these things. To make these acts possible, the human readable form of the program (called the source code) must be made available. The source code may be either accompanied by a software license saying that the copyright holder permits these acts (a free software license), or be released into public domain, so that these rights automatically hold.

Free software is distinct from freeware; freeware is proprietary software made available free of charge. One can use, but not study, modify or redistribute freeware.

The definition, written by Richard Stallman, is still maintained today and states that software is free software if people who receive a copy of the software have the following four freedoms:

• Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
• Freedom 1: The freedom to study and modify the program.
• Freedom 2: The freedom to copy the program so you can help your neighbor.
• Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

Freedoms 1 and 3 require source code to be available because studying and modifying software without its source code is highly impractical.

In the late 90s, other groups published their own definitions which describe an almost identical set of software. The most notable are Debian Free Software Guidelines published in 1997, and the Open Source Definition, published in 1998.

Open source is a set of principles and practices on how to write software, the most important of which is that the source code is openly available. The Open Source Definition, which was created by Bruce Perens[ and Eric Raymond and is currently maintained by the Open Source Initiative, adds additional meaning to the term: one should not only get the source code but also have the right to use it.

The Open Source Definition, licenses must meet ten conditions in order to be considered open source licenses. Below is a copy of the definition. It was taken under fair use.

1. Free Redistribution: the software can be freely given away or sold. (This was intended to encourage sharing and use of the software on a legal basis.)
2. Source Code: the source code must either be included or freely obtainable. (Without source code, making changes or modifications can be impossible.)
3. Derived Works: redistribution of modifications must be allowed. (To allow legal sharing and to permit new features or repairs.)
4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code: licenses may require that modifications are redistributed only as patches.
5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups: no one can be locked out.
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor: commercial users cannot be excluded.
7. Distribution of License: The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties.
8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product: the program cannot be licensed only as part of a larger distribution.
9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software: the license cannot insist that any other software it is distributed with must also be open source.
10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral: no click-wrap licenses or other medium-specific ways of accepting the license must be required.

In Hungry Haiti, Dirt Is Food

It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud.

With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies.

Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau.

The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.

"When my mother does not cook anything, I have to eat them three times a day," Charlene said. Her baby, named Woodson, lay still across her lap, looking even thinner than the slim 6 pounds 3 ounces he weighed at birth.

Though she likes their buttery, salty taste, Charlene said the cookies also give her stomach pains. "When I nurse, the baby sometimes seems colicky too," she said.

Food prices around the world have spiked because of higher oil prices, needed for fertilizer, irrigation and transportation. Prices for basic ingredients such as corn and wheat are also up sharply, and the increasing global demand for biofuels is pressuring food markets as well.

The problem is particularly dire in the Caribbean, where island nations depend on imports and food prices are up 40 percent in places.

The global price hikes, together with floods and crop damage from the 2007 hurricane season, prompted the U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency to declare states of emergency in Haiti and several other Caribbean countries. Caribbean leaders held an emergency summit in December to discuss cutting food taxes and creating large regional farms to reduce dependence on imports.

At the market in the La Saline slum, two cups of rice now sell for 60 cents, up 10 cents from December and 50 percent from a year ago. Beans, condensed milk and fruit have gone up at a similar rate, and even the price of the edible clay has risen over the past year by almost $1.50. Dirt to make 100 cookies now costs $5, the cookie makers say.

Still, at about 5 cents apiece, the cookies are a bargain compared to food staples. About 80 percent of people in Haiti live on less than $2 a day and a tiny elite controls the economy.

Merchants truck the dirt from the central town of Hinche to the La Saline market, a maze of tables of vegetables and meat swarming with flies. Women buy the dirt, then process it into mud cookies in places such as Fort Dimanche, a nearby shanty town.

Carrying buckets of dirt and water up ladders to the roof of the former prison for which the slum is named, they strain out rocks and clumps on a sheet, and stir in shortening and salt. Then they pat the mixture into mud cookies and leave them to dry under the scorching sun.

The finished cookies are carried in buckets to markets or sold on the streets.

A reporter sampling a cookie found that it had a smooth consistency and sucked all the moisture out of the mouth as soon as it touched the tongue. For hours, an unpleasant taste of dirt lingered.

Assessments of the health effects are mixed. Dirt can contain deadly parasites or toxins, but can also strengthen the immunity of fetuses in the womb to certain diseases, said Gerald N. Callahan, an immunology professor at Colorado State University who has studied geophagy, the scientific name for dirt-eating.

Haitian doctors say depending on the cookies for sustenance risks malnutrition.

"Trust me, if I see someone eating those cookies, I will discourage it," said Dr. Gabriel Thimothee, executive director of Haiti's health ministry.

Marie Noel, 40, sells the cookies in a market to provide for her seven children. Her family also eats them.
"I'm hoping one day I'll have enough food to eat, so I can stop eating these," she said. "I know it's not good for me."