UT staff and students can now order their free wap-phone on the CIV-site. If you believe the media UMTS is hot, and wap is not. Why is the UT distributing nine-thousand mobile phones at this moment?
'It is not about wap, but about making wireless access to information available'. Jeroen van de Lagemaat, manager Wireless Campus cannot say this enough. 'We want to familiarise students and staff with wireless internet. Of course, 'wapping' is not the best you can think of. It is, however, the only way to give a large group of users the opportunity to get to know the possible applications.'
Not the best you can think of. Van de Lagemaat means GPRS and UMTS, systems that will improve mobile internetting. With GPRS, for example, wapping becomes much faster. 'With such a phone you do not need to establish a connection. You are on-line instantly.' Van de Lagemaat says.
SURFnet, Libertel and Ericsson are testing GPRS at the University of Eindhoven at the moment, for the government project Gigaport. Ten people are already walking around with a GPRS phone, and in December a larger test is scheduled with one-hundred students. There are as yet no plans to get all students a mobile phone.
Klaas Wierenga, innovation manager at SURFnet leads the test. 'In fact wapping is poor men's internetting. GPRS already improves on that considerably. Libertel wants to offer GPRS nationally before the end of the year.' Wierenga has his doubts about the wap-project of the UT, but understands the step. 'The bottleneck with GPRS is availability of phones. This means either waiting or doing something now. The UT chooses the latter.'
Van de Lagemaat: 'It is impossible to offer nine-thousand GPRS
phones at this stage. It is possible with wap technology. And should GPRS be commercially available, then the UT will certainly take the opportunity to strike another deal. Our community will then have some experience with wap and will be ideal to serve as a testing ground for GPRS and UMTS. We will continue to confront the UT with new possibilities. Wap is just the first step. The emphasis is on the total concept of the Wireless Campus.'
To use GPRS, therefore, another phone is needed. Will this one also be offered free of charge? 'We will certainly try that', Van de Lagemaat says optimistically. He is just as positive about the interest in the telephones. 'We appeal to the success of the gsm. Experience teaches us that people will use new technologies that can be used everywhere, are personal and controllable. Many objections will then melt away.'
Wap offers students and staff limited possibilities at the moment. 'Checking e-mail, sending short messages to each other. Looking up names and telephone numbers.' Other applications are being developed.
