VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Teamware Group, Nokia and Radiolinja today announced that they have started a new research project on the mobile Internet. The goal of the two-year project is to develop a system which will utilize audio, video and location-based data and make normal fixed access www-pages accessible to mobile devices. The project is financed by Tekes, the National Technology Agency of Finland.

"The popularity of mobile devices has exploded in recent years. Current forecasts predict the number of wireless terminals with Internet capability to exceed the number of conventional PC’s by 2003," said the chairman of the project, Timo Hjalmar Laaksonen from Teamware Group.

The current project is a continuation of the development work that was started in 1999. The outcome of the initial project was a WAP-proxy that translates html language automatically into wml format, thus, enabling a user to access Internet pages with a WAP device. Now with the third generation of mobile phones and the new Internet document formats emerging, the service is being developed further.

The existing WAP-proxy will be enhanced to support the new xhtml format, suitable for multi-channel publishing, as well as the next WAP-generation, i.e. WAP2.0.

The enhanced proxy recognizes the terminal that is being used and adapts the user interface accordingly. For example, images and graphics are automatically converted to fit the display of the device in question. The aim is to further develop "push" services that will bring the required data to the user's mobile phone, for example at a certain time or location.

The project will include extensive field trials to study the adoption and usage of the new services. The pilot users will be chosen during May 2002.

Interaction counts in mobile environments
The field trials of the initial WAP-proxy research project demonstrated that much of the use of the mobile services took place at home in the evening rather than on the move. However, most of existing mobile services are intended for users on the move. The results stress that mobile devices are above all personal communication devices, and therefore there was a clear need for personalized and interactive services enabling users to participate and communicate with others.

The new proxy is going to be built on the Teamware Pl@za® platform, which is used for creating interactive web services. Nokia will provide the mobile phones for the pilot organizations and Radiolinja is responsible for the network infrastructure. VTT Information Technology is responsible for the practical research work and the implementation of the special software needed for the project.

The project will be finalized by the end of 2003. The project is a part of the NETS - Networks for the Future technology programme financed by Tekes.

Press contacts:
Timo Laakko, VTT Information Technology, tel. +358 9 456 4505 or e-mail: timo.laakko@vtt.fi.
Timo Laaksonen, Teamware Group Oy, tel. +358 50 558 7860 or e-mail: timo.laaksonen@teamware.com.
Nokia Mobile Phones, Communications, tel. +358 7180 0800 or e-mail: nokia.mobile.phones@nokia.com.
Janne Isosävi, Radiolinja, tel. +358 50 506 5704 or e-mail: janne.isosavi@radiolinja.fi.