The Mobile Worker (Part 2)
02-32-2002
By: Catherine Skerritt
'Flexible working' is a broad term that describes all working practices that fall outside the traditional models of work.
Flexible working practices have resulted from advances in technology development particularly in telecommunications and computer applications. Communications technologies have freed companies and employees from work at a fixed time and place. FlexWork is a project funded by the European Commission as part of the research and development programme called the 'Information Society Technologies'. FlexWork is managed by the Telecommunications and Systems Software Group (TSSG) a research arm of Waterford Institute of Technology. The FlexWork project hopes to promote the adoption of flexible working by companies so that they can become more efficient and profitable organisations and help the regional economy to grow more quickly.
Keeping in touch on the move
Almost all mobile phones in Europe make use of a technology called GSM. GSM was designed to provide good quality mobile voice services and to offer good security. A benefit for the international traveller is that the same system is used throughout Europe and in many other countries around the world. A complication is that not all GSM networks use the same radio frequencies and you really need a 'dual-band' phone if you travel extensively.
Most GSM networks also offer an extremely useful voice mail facility, so that people can leave messages for you if your phone is busy, switched off, or out of range of a transmitter. Any GSM phone can also send text messages to any other GSM phone. This has now encouraged many network operators to develop simple text-based information services giving, for example, traffic information and weather reports.
Seeing the popularity of text messaging, the industry developed a Wireless Applications Protocol (WAP) to deliver more sophisticated information services to the display screens of GSM phones. The idea was the users could surf cut-downs versions of Internet WEB pages using their mobile phones. WAP based services were launched in 2000 and are gaining in their popularity.
It has always been possible to use a modem to connect a GSM phone to a laptop computer and access the Internet, but the connection is very slow. The 3rd Generation mobile networks that are being planned around Europe are expected to make mobile data communication a practical reality.
In the mean time, operators are introducing a number of interim solutions, sometimes known as 2.5G. One such is HSCSD (high Speed Circuit Switched Data), which is a relatively inefficient (i.e. inexpensive) way of using the network for data and has not been widely offered in Europe.
For more advice on how to use the technologies available to you, visit the FlexWork website at www.flexwork.eu.com.
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