How It Started

Abstract

Internet access on cellular phones, after emerging as a new technology in the mid-1990s, is now a thriving activity despite the global economic recession. IDC reported smartphone sales of 1.18 billion units in 2008 (IDC, 2009), compared to the unconnected personal digital assistants approaching merely 1 million units per quarter in the second half of 2003.However, the concept of using handheld devices for wide area data applications began 25 years prior to the beginning of the end of PDAs