Internet Use

Everywhere you go people are accessing the Internet all around you. It is just a common thing to do now for this busy world. Accessing the Internet wirelessly with mobile devices is the newest trend. Over the past seven years accessing the Internet wirelessly has become the trend. New advances in technology have allowed people to accesses the web virtually anywhere. Just because its "mobile" does not mean it is just on a cell phone. Wi-Fi is also a form of Internet that can be accessed with a laptop, which is mobile.

"Accessing the Internet on a wireless handheld device is no longer a novelty for consumers in the major global economies,. it's becoming a common, everyday occurrence for many people," says Brian Cruikshank, managing director at Ipsos (Growing). The mobile telephone Internet is seven years old. Almost any phone that is purchased now comes with the Internet feature. This is only getting better with new devices like iPhone coming out. Motorola and Yahoo! have teamed up releasing Yahoo! Go onto over 70 Motorola devices, almost their entire product line (Yahoo!). Now there is a downfall of using the Internet on your cell phone. Screen size being the main problem. Most cell phones had, and still have, a screen size of an inch or two. A full HTML website that would be accessed on a desktop computer would not be displayed on a cell phone screen. "PDAs and the iPhone help this because of their larger screen sizes and more memory. Many phones and PDAs are using WPA (Wireless Application Protocol) and WML (Wireless Markup Language) these two allow web sites to be viewed on the small screens and smaller documents to come in faster" (Fractal). New phones that run Windows mobile and the iPhone use straight HTML. Many of the Internet browsers developed mini-browsers for phones.

The mobile Internet is more than just on a cell phone. Someone with a laptop computer that goes from their house to Starbucks makes the Internet mobile. Wi-Fi (802.11) is the most popular way wireless devices talk. Some devices are able to use Wi-Fi then why out of range they switch to 3G, format cell phone providers use for Internet. If the device comes back in range of a Wi-Fi connection then it will automatically switch back. People can find Wi-Fi connections at hundreds of places anywhere from a fast food restaurant to hotels. There are many sites on the Internet that can tell you where Wi-Fi hot spots are located, one of the most popular is www.jwire.com. This virtually allows Internet users to go from place to place always using the Internet.

The "hand held" Internet use to be more popular with the youth of the world, now everyone is using it. "Today, four in 10 adults browse the Internet on their wireless handset in Japan, double the rate from 2003. However, growth in Internet browsing on a mobile phone is flattening in other leading markets, such as the U.S. and Canada, where wireless Internet access via notebook PC appears to be emerging as the stronger out-of-home Internet platform (Mobile)."

The Internet is growing more and more every day and it is not slowing down. From computer to phones and PDAs the Internet is all around. "Today, the personal computer remains the dominant platform to access the Internet globally. However, Internet access via the mobile phone actually outpaces wireless access from a notebook PC in many of areas of the world - a statistic driven largely by the massive install base of mobile phones throughout the world as well as more developed wireless networks" (Mobile).

Works Cited

Growing Number of Mobile Device Internet Users in Europe, Asia. April 2006. Media Buyer Planner. January 2007. http://www.mediabuyerplanner.com/2006/04/21/growing_number_of_mobile/

Yahoo! Ushers in New Era in Mobile Internet Services With Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0. January 2007. Yahoo!. January 2007. http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=224599

Fractal Summarization for Mobile Devices to Access Large Documents on the Web. May 2003. Chinese University of Hong Kong. January 2007. http://www2003.org/cdrom/papers/refereed/p681/p681-yang-html/p681-yang.html

Mobile phones and the Internet. January 2007. Internet Evangelism Day. January 2007. http://guide.gospelcom.net/resources/mobile.php