Re:Viewing 2002 - Mobile and wireless (Part 2)

2002 was also the year of the wireless LAN, as numerous equipment vendors, especially Intel (http://www.silicon.com/a55462) kept on telling us. For every stumble 3G took, networks based on Wi-Fi - 802.11b and increasingly 802.11a - standards took a leap forward. So there were fears about security and so called drive-by hacking and war-chalking (http://www.silicon.com/a54216) but it was the year most major airports went wireless, and Wi-Fi became sophisticated, adding location-based functions (http://www.silicon.com/a56015) and even voice (http://www.silicon.com/a52883), minus any real quality of service - for now.

Unsurprisingly, 3G advocates such as the UMTS Forum fought back (http://www.silicon.com/a54891).

And while Europe struggled with roll outs of 3G networks based on W-CDMA, other markets moved on. South Korea, Strand Consult's topic of the year, was declared the most advanced market (http://www.silicon.com/a55376), though operators in Japan and the US also showed off some advanced data services. We asked whether the US could actually teach Europe a thing or two about mobile now (http://www.silicon.com/a56016) and turned the spotlight on Qualcomm, the San Diego company behind the CDMA2000 3G standard that is doing so well (http://www.silicon.com/a56449).

Also in Asia, China Mobile took over as the mobile company with the most users, even if all its subscribers are in its home country, by year's end totalling 200 million users. Vodafone and fellow giant NTT DoCoMo suffered huge write-downs (http://www.silicon.com/a53671), though the latter could point to its i-mode spreading to Holland, Germany, France and Spain.

Did one OS company make much progress at the expense of the rest? Maybe Symbian did. For its lack of revenues and market share, it started the year by needing more investment, then shocked with the resignation of its CEO but ended by speaking about a couple of dozen Symbian devices on their way and, most famously, stealing Sendo from under Microsoft's Smartphone OS grasp (http://www.silicon.com/a56292).

Microsoft did make some progress. The PocketPC-based iPaq continues to attract certain users and we did like Orange's SPV (http://www.silicon.com/a56070) - software plainly from Microsoft, hardware not so plainly from Taiwan's HTC.

Palm, apart from a Kyocera phone and Handspring's Treo, one of the failures of the year, continues to concentrate on the PDA, and it finished on a high. Its low-end Zire models are selling well (http://www.silicon.com/a55835) and its high-end Tungstens look the business.

The main problem overall for PDAs was a stagnant market and expanding it will be everyone's challenge next year.

But of course nothing stank as much as 3G. Even a UK House of Commons Select Committee concluded licences had cost too much (http://www.silicon.com/a52956).

This was the year when mobile phone sales fell for the first time. All sorts of companies were sweating like middle-aged men in Nokia's tennis court-sized sauna (http://www.silicon.com/a54180).

By February, we had heard about Afghanistan's first mobile network (http://www.silicon.com/a51424) but by year end Hutchison 3G had yet to launch its '3' network - though its profile was being built and its name explained (http://www.silicon.com/a54345).

Also by the end of the year, some light was thrown on the BBC's PDA policy (http://www.silicon.com/a56281), after an earlier clamp down had been revealed by silicon.com. Not everyone was sure how to adjust to this brave new world of wireless and mobility, it seems.

One message was clear throughout, however - as a survey showed, IT departments mantra had become: "We want wireless, we want wireless..." And that's unlikely to change in 2003.