Building wireless Internet services: state of the art

Summary form only given. Most Internet technologies have been designed for desktop and large computers running on reliable networks with relatively high bandwidth. Handheld wireless devices (or mobile devices), however, have a more constrained computing environment compared to desktop computers. Mobile devices tend to have less memory, less powerful CPUs, different input devices, and smaller displays. Further, wireless networks have less bandwidth and more latency compared to wired computer networks. Several solutions have been proposed to address these constraints, but as the wireless Internet market is moving at fast pace; new devices and technologies are always on the horizon and developers are faced with the challenge of learning about these devices, the technologies and development environments available that can be used to develop applications for these mobile devices. We present an overview of the three widely used technologies for building wireless Internet services, followed by a comparison of the different technologies.