Darkfell writes "The first Palm computer able to connect directly to the Internet will be unveiled in New York on May 24, according to people familiar with the company's plans. Along with the new device, Palm will debut its Palm.net wireless Internet service.
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Re:Internet Access.....Late? Hardly.
by
jezor
·
· Score: 4
Fine, I'll take this one. The Palm Pilot platform has had a built in TCP/IP stack and Internet-capable applications since at least the PalmPilot Pro, and maybe before. What's new to the Palm VII is wireless Internet connection without requirement of add-ons or modems. Of course, the 8kbps Web clipping offered by the Palm VII is fun, but the 19.2kbps CDPD IP connectivity offered by the clip-on Minstrel wireless modems is available today, nationwide, affordable, and is true Internet access. Very cool. {Jonathan}
another winner from Palm, most likely
by
tuffy
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· Score: 4
But probably not so much from the web aspect. "Clipping" news sites will be a bonus, and very handy for those boring meetings/classes/etc. However, I think wirelessly beaming apps/data to anyone else with a Palm VIII from across town will be the major selling point for people. Integrating these things with cell phones and beepers could cut down on a whole lot of gadget overload.
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Ita erat quando hic adveni.
The scoop on the connectivity
by
RebornData
·
· Score: 5
As I understand it, the network behind Palm.Net is Bell South Wireless Data, which was originally a company called "RAM". The technology is called "Mobitex" and is a low-speed FM radio packet network. I know a bit about the network, having worked on a laptop-based wireless messaging service that used it.
The IP issue The network itself is not IP-based, and I doubt that Palm would implement full TCP/IP on top of it- specifically, I don't think TCP would be feasible, and it wouldn't make sense to add the overhead of an additional packet protocol on top of the base network. Palm has probably implemented proxy servers that communicate with specially-designed websites and compress and transmit the web data back to your palm using a protocol that is most likely largely proprietary. The transmission protocol between a wireless application server and the actual network was X.25 back when I was working with it, but I bet they've moved to Frame Relay or some sort of stream wrapped in IP by now. So it's unlikely that any of the existing Palm TCP/IP apps will work with this service (based on what I know of the network).
Coverage Although Bell South is regional, the network is nationwide in the US, and has pretty amazing coverage. RAM used to compete with a similar network run by Motorola- RAM generally had the higher data trasmission rates, Motorola better in-building coverage. Folks outside the US are out of luck- I don't think Mobitex is an international standard.
Performance The network is designed to transmit fairly large packets, and has high latency. In-building coverage can be a real problem- when I was using RAM to get my e-mail on the road, I generally had to be near a window for it to work well. It was also somewhat spotty when moving (like in a car). It's been a couple of years since I really used the network, so they may have improved things, but there are very good reasons why Palm has implemented this as a "web clippings" service and not as a full-on browser.
Slashdot Mirror
Fine, I'll take this one. The Palm Pilot platform has had a built in TCP/IP stack and Internet-capable applications since at least the PalmPilot Pro, and maybe before. What's new to the Palm VII is wireless Internet connection without requirement of add-ons or modems. Of course, the 8kbps Web clipping offered by the Palm VII is fun, but the 19.2kbps CDPD IP connectivity offered by the clip-on Minstrel wireless modems is available today, nationwide, affordable, and is true Internet access. Very cool. {Jonathan}
But probably not so much from the web aspect. "Clipping" news sites will be a bonus, and very handy for those boring meetings/classes/etc. However, I think wirelessly beaming apps/data to anyone else with a Palm VIII from across town will be the major selling point for people. Integrating these things with cell phones and beepers could cut down on a whole lot of gadget overload.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
As I understand it, the network behind Palm.Net is Bell South Wireless Data, which was originally a company called "RAM". The technology is called "Mobitex" and is a low-speed FM radio packet network. I know a bit about the network, having worked on a laptop-based wireless messaging service that used it.
The IP issue
The network itself is not IP-based, and I doubt that Palm would implement full TCP/IP on top of it- specifically, I don't think TCP would be feasible, and it wouldn't make sense to add the overhead of an additional packet protocol on top of the base network. Palm has probably implemented proxy servers that communicate with specially-designed websites and compress and transmit the web data back to your palm using a protocol that is most likely largely proprietary. The transmission protocol between a wireless application server and the actual network was X.25 back when I was working with it, but I bet they've moved to Frame Relay or some sort of stream wrapped in IP by now. So it's unlikely that any of the existing Palm TCP/IP apps will work with this service (based on what I know of the network).
Coverage
Although Bell South is regional, the network is nationwide in the US, and has pretty amazing coverage. RAM used to compete with a similar network run by Motorola- RAM generally had the higher data trasmission rates, Motorola better in-building coverage. Folks outside the US are out of luck- I don't think Mobitex is an international standard.
Performance
The network is designed to transmit fairly large packets, and has high latency. In-building coverage can be a real problem- when I was using RAM to get my e-mail on the road, I generally had to be near a window for it to work well. It was also somewhat spotty when moving (like in a car). It's been a couple of years since I really used the network, so they may have improved things, but there are very good reasons why Palm has implemented this as a "web clippings" service and not as a full-on browser.