Anyone that believed the hype when WAP launched at the end of the last century may perhaps have imagined that nearly 7 years on we'd all be permanently tapped into the web, being constantly fed information via our phones. The networks certainly believed so when they outlaid billions on 3G licenses. The reality of WAP hasn't quite lived up to the initial hopes. Slow connections and the high prices set by networks for data have stunted take-up of mobile internet services.
But the mobile internet idea is far from dead. One company trying to address the issues that have blighted demand for mobile internet services until now is Z GROUP plc, the company behind the award winning internet acceleration software for your PC - ONSPEED. ONSPEED Mobile, as the product is known, uses a Java html browser that allows you to surf virtually any website on your mobile phone, loading pages in seconds and formatting them in a user friendly manner. Z GROUP say that the speed boost comes from applying on-the-fly compression algorithms, that not only make the connection faster, but also cut data bills significantly up to 75%. Cutting the costs of surfing and addressing the speed issues make it an attractive proposition, but coupled with an ability to surf standard websites this makes ONSPEED Mobile a killer application. Suddenly sites such as Yell.com, AA route finder, and Timeout.com, when used out and about, take on an extra level of utility. It also makes finding the latest score on a Saturday afternoon much easier and, using Wikipedia, it is the ultimate pub quiz weapon.
ONSPEED Mobile is £24.99 a year, good value if you consider the large data savings you could make on your mobile bill. With a 14-day money back guarantee and free technical support it is available to buy at
. Definitely worth looking into if you can't stand to be away from your computer for more than a few minutes.
So mobile web access finally has a decent platform. It can't compete with desktop browsing, but then it's not designed to and ONSPEED Mobile is certainly the best mobile offering available.
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