Impact of different cellular-IP convergence strategies on mobile terminals

The last few years has seen a proliferation of the Internet, making it accessible to several millions of users worldwide. At the same time, the use of mobile devices such as cellular telephones and personal digital assistants (PDA) has been on the rise. Currently, we are beginning to see the convergence of these technologies whereby access to the Internet and other (potentially private) packet switched networks happens via mobile devices. The Internet protocol (IP) and the associated TCP/IP protocol suite - which is used in the Internet - is beginning to find its way into mobile devices as well. However, the cellular-IP convergence strategy and the extent to which the TCP/IP protocol suite is being embraced varies from one cellular standard to another. We compare differences in cellular-IP convergence strategies and discuss the impact that this has on cellular terminals