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Global System for Mobile Communications,
a standard for digital mobile telephones widely used in Europe. Gsm and its
variants are rapidly being adopted elsewhere in the world, especially in
Asia and Australasia. Gsm allows phones to send and receive data at
up to 9,600bps in conjunction with a personal computer or pda.
It is not generally suitable for surfing websites designed to be accessed by
pcs, but it is adequate for e-mail and text-only websites that have
been designed with low-bandwidth connections in mind. New, faster versions
of the gsm standard are now available, although most wireless
operators have delayed the launch of their fastest 3G services. An
intermediate solution to the wireless bandwidth problem, gprs
(sometimes referred to as 2.5g) is now widely available from most European
mobile telephone operators, although many of these still have trouble
explaining exactly why their subscribers need it. The biggest use for data
exchange via gsm is still messaging (sms). |
