Tag Archives: GSM

A Communicator Killer?

I tend to think of the Nokia Communicator (aka The Brick) as a somewhat retrograde device, popular to folk who haven’t quite caught up with the shape of things to come (aka The Smartphone). But Indonesians and Germans don’t agree (link to a podcast I did on the subject for the BBC), using the Communicator… Read More »

The Poor Get Their Motorolas

I’m intrigued by this program to offer cheap handsets for the poor (from The Register), but I have my doubts. The Register says Motorola has been selected by the GSM Association (GSMA) to supply the handsets for its programme to provide mobile telephony to people in developing countries. Motorola will commence delivery of these phones in… Read More »

How To Build A Good Airport

I just want to sing the praises of Singapore’s Changi airport. I was upset to see a year or so back that they had discontinued free Wi-Fi —  now you have to pay, although many GSM operators have roaming agreements that give you a free access code to one of the airport’s Wi-Fi operators —… Read More »

GPRS on the Road? Forget it

I’m amazed by how hard it is to get GPRS when you’re traveling. Prepaid GSM cards don’t seem to support it unless you subscribe to some special service, and even then it’s crippingly expensive (altho not as expensive as roaming). I know 3G is going to replace this intermediate technology sometime, but given the popularity… Read More »

Malaysia’s New PDA Phone

Malaysian company Fifth Media (beware: lots of Flash animation) will this week launch the Axia, a PDA phone that is small, and, at $525, ‘arguably the lowest-priced PDA phone’, according to today’s New Straits Times. The Axia A108 is a GSM tri-band phone using Microsoft Windows CE.NET, with GPRS, MP3 player and 1.3 megapixel camera. There’s no… Read More »