Role
of Internet Technology in Future Mobile Data System
Next Generation Internet
The Internet has dramatically changed the way America communicates
and does business. Between 1991 to 1999, the number of domain
names with an IP address rose from almost zero in 1991 to by 45,000,000
by 1999.1 From the consumer's standpoint, the Internet offers
the ability to interact with health practitioners online and easily
access health-related information. It's no wonder, then, that
more people use the Internet to gather information about health-related
topics than any other subject.
However,
there are numerous barriers that might inhibit telehealth growth
on the Internet, including growing delays, costs, and lack of
security, reliability and availability on a worldwide basis. The
development of Internet2 might help address some of these barriers.
Internet2 is a joint venture by academia, the federal government
and industry. This group is using a new high-speed backbone network
with a core subnetwork consisting of a 2.4-Gbps, 13,000-mile research
network to test Internet applications (for example, Internet Protocol
(IP) multicasting, differentiated service levels, and advanced
security). It will also allow researchers to test and resolve
problems such as bandwidth constraints, quality and security issues.
In the telehealth
industry, wireless technology is most commonly used for telemetry
and emergency medical services. However, in countries that have
adapted to digital wireless phone systems faster than the United
States, the future of wireless technology is already available.
For example, in Japan, Nippon Telephone & Telegraph will provide
Internet e-mail access via its wireless phone services to 1 million
customers. This year, Japanese companies will also introduce a
mobile videophone to its local markets that can transmit live
video at 32 kbps. In the Netherlands, Nokia has already introduced
the Nokia 9110 Communicator, which can link to a digital camera;
store images, and then e-mail them. Nokia's Communicator will
be available in the United States within in the next year, but
mobile videophones may not be for several years.
Companies
in the United States have already have introduced wireless handheld
computers, such as the Palm Series and its competitors. More recently,
mobile phone providers, such as Sprint PCS , have introduced products
with the ability to access limited Web pages for text information
but direct access to the Web and its graphics is not yet possible
without appropriate technical standards. However, a standard called
the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is already under development.
WAP is a way of converting information on Internet Web sites into
a form that can be displayed on a mobile hand-held phone device.
The advent of so-called microbrowsers may still be a few years
away, because mobile systems currently do not have the capacity
to support high-speed connections with the Internet. Once faster
speeds are available, WAP proponents believe that consumers will
be able to get message notification and call management, electronic
mail, mapping and location services, weather and traffic alerts,
sports and financial services, address book and directory services,
and corporate intranet applications on their hand-held devices.