杏吧原创

AN industry split over the best way to speed up Net access via mobiles and
laptops could be bad news for consumers. British cellphone networks Orange and
One 2 One plan to adopt rival standards to boost wireless modem speeds beyond
today鈥檚 9.6 kilobits per second.

In December Orange will launch a High Speed Circuit Switched Data service
that combines two or more channels, hiking the speed to 28.8K. And next year,
One 2 One will introduce the General Packet Radio Service, which allocates up to
56K when needed.

To use the services, you will have to buy new cellphones or wireless modems
for your laptops. But those who invest in the HSCSD technology will not be able
to take advantage of the faster speeds possible with GPRS. 鈥淗SCSD is a
technology cul-de-sac. GPRS hardware will cope with it, but HSCSD hardware will
not handle GPRS,鈥� says Craig Tillotson, One 2 One鈥檚 director of strategy.

One 2 One also claims its system will be far cheaper to operate. But Stuart
Scott, Orange鈥檚 Internet product manager, says: 鈥淲e have not yet set [HSCSD]
tariffs, but our target is to add only a very small premium.鈥�

The problem may not be limited to Britain. Cellphone companies in other
countries that have adopted Europe鈥檚 GSM mobile standard, may opt for one or
other of the rival standards. Things will get even more complicated in 2002 with
the introduction of GSM鈥檚 successor, UMTS. Speeds of up to 2 megabits per second
will then be possible.