Turbo-Charged Data

The wireless Internet of today is an unreliable, low-bandwidth and low-latency environment that can be frustrating to say the least. Leaving the office behind, road warriors used to dial-up connections of 56kb/s and higher are likely to disconnect their laptops in disgust over agonizingly slow speeds.

But there are a few innovative companies out there today with solutions to this dilemma. Both Speedwise (visit #1039 or www.speedwise.com) and BlueKite.com (visit #7955 or www.bluekite.com) will be exhibiting their wireless Internet optimization solutions at CTIA Wireless 2001 in Las Vegas.

Both use advanced compression techniques to maximize low-bandwidth wireless connections to the Internet. Yet their approaches differ in some ways. BlueKite requires the loading of software on client-side devices, while Speedwise’s solution is entirely server-based.

“Both of these technologies have the potential to have quite an important impact on the development of the wireless Internet,” said Bob House, Adventis vice president & analyst (www.adventis.com). “Increasingly, it’s looking like 3G delays are going to take quite some time to sort out. Therefore, anything that can be done to speed up access over 2G and 2.5G networks is pretty valuable. They will face an increasing market opportunity.”

David Cox, BlueKite.com CEO, said his company’s Data Reduxion technology uses compression, caching and encoding to attain an “apparent access speed” of 56kb/s compared to today’s wireless networks. The solution has been deployed by BT Cellnet (ww2.btcellnet.co.uk), Connect Austria (www.connect-austria.at), Sprint PCS (www.sprintpcs.com), Swisscom Mobile (www.swisscom.ch) and Telecel (www.telecel.pt). Cox said his company is in discussions with a number of other carriers in the United States.

“Optimization adds value to a carrier’s investment in spectrum,” he said.

Cox explained that BlueKite.com’s Data Reduxion technology starts with micro-caching on the client device, which could be a laptop, PDA or smart phone.

“This means that the amount of information that needs to be transmitted over the wireless link is significantly minimized,” he said. “It’s very focused on minimizing data transmissions since wireless networks are very low bandwidth and high cost. It’s also very tuned for dynamic, rich content — Web content.”

Second, the data is compressed using a number of algorithms. Images are compressed at this stage, resulting in a nearly imperceptible loss of resolution.

“It enables the end user to select a level of image quality in exchange for performance,” Cox said. “You’re actually able to remove some of the fineness or color depth of a picture in exchange for having a faster experience.”

Third, the data is encoded using algorithms that make TCP/IP and HTTP move faster across mobile networks that weren’t designed for optimal transmission of Web content, he said.

As higher speed 3G networks become widespread, capacity management will continue to be a challenge for carriers. Just as the explosion in wired Internet traffic created a market for companies such as Inktomi (www.inktomi.com) and Akamai (www.akamai.com), carriers of wireless Internet traffic will turn to companies such as BlueKite.com and Speedwise for continued capacity enhancement.

Cox admitted that by using client-side software, BlueKite.com’s solution requires one more step than a solely server-based solution such as Speedwise’s. However, he said that software is integrated with other components, such as the modem driver or the browser, so that the user doesn’t even notice the installation.

And, he said that using client-side software enables Data Reduxion to benefit from caching and encoding techniques, which Cox claimed are not possible using a server-side solution.

“As 2.5G and 3G networks emerge, those networks do not function well at all without encoding,” he said. “So there’s a requirement for encoding on the 2.5G and 3G networks. By the time people get into mass adoption of those networks, it will require client-side software to do encoding anyway.”

Moshe Sheps, Speedwise president, explained that his company’s Accellence solution yields a 6-fold increase in wireless Internet access speed. Using content-reduction and delivery-optimization methods, Sheps said Accellence provides “virtual bandwidth.”

“In the content-reduction category, the main contributor is a pattern-analysis technology, for which we have many patents pending,” he said. “We reduce the number of bits necessary to represent an image or graphic. By doing that, we have widened the available bandwidth. In addition, in the category of content reduction, we are compressing the text, which is then decompressed by the Web browser. There is no need to decompress using other software.”

Additionally, Speedwise’s solution uses advanced HTTP session management and caching techniques to further optimize available bandwidth.

Although Accellence is aimed at three markets — wireless carriers, ISPs and enterprises — Sheps said that wireless carriers are a main target.

“The wireless world is still very narrowband, which makes Web browsing somewhat impractical,” he said. “The trend to enhance the bandwidth has only begun in the United States. The wireless carriers need to do very little to provide a level of acceleration to their client base. It includes the installation of software on a standard platform, be it Sun Solaris or Linux. And as soon as they install our Accellence product on it and reroute the traffic, all their customers will enjoy that level of acceleration, mainly because there is nothing the end user has to do. It is 100% transparent to the end user, regardless of platform or browser. The only requirement we have is that the end user is browsing with a standard browser.”

Sheps said Accellence was recently launched and although no customer announcements have yet been made, deals are in the works.

“Some wireless data services are claiming between 9.6kb/s and 20kb/s, but we rarely measure anyone actually getting that speed,” he said. “What it means practically, is that (with our solution) you can wirelessly browse the Internet with the same performance or sometimes better than you can do at your desktop.”

More at the Show:

• AmikaNow has recognized the need to allow users to access relevant e-mail at any time and from anywhere in the world. That’s why the company has introduced the Amikaä Enterprise Edition, a product that sits behind the enterprise firewall and hooks up to any e-mail server, be it Exchange or Notes, and delivers relevant abbreviated e-mail summaries to the mobile user.

The Amikaä Enterprise Edition hooks into the Microsoft exchange or Lotus Domino mail server to provide policy-based e-mail filtering.
Visit #2474 or www.amikanow.com

• Flash Networks’ NettGain enables wireless data users to enjoy the anytime, anywhere aspect of the wireless Internet. NettGain’s technology adds intelligence over IP to achieve an efficient and reliable transport protocol.

NettGain combines a set of data protocols optimized for the wireless environment with content compression and optimization methods to deliver high-speed data access over 2G, 2.5G and 3G wireless networks. It uses dynamic load balancing and a redirection mechanism to support redundancy, scaleability and high availability.

NettGain offers a range of solutions, from a client-server solution aimed at enterprises to a server-only solution aimed at mass consumer markets.
Visit #8049 or www.flashnetworks.com

• Siebel Systems has introduced its next generation of multichannel eBusiness applications for the communications industry, Siebel eCommunications.

Siebel eCommunications is an industry-specific application that allow carriers to manage, synchronize and coordinate sales, marketing, and customer service across all communication channels and points of customer contact — including the Web, the call center, field sales and service, and reseller channels.
Visit #671 or www.siebel.com

• ViAir is a mobile applications-management and -delivery platform provider targeting carriers, ISPs and other service providers.

The company’s WirelessInbox Enterprise is a carrier-grade application that gives wireless users access to their corporate e-mail, calendar and contacts behind the corporate firewall using virtually any Web-enabled device via a single sign on.
Visit #7631 or www.viair.com

• Version 2.0 of UltiVerse’s FreeVerse wireless Internet messaging solution is an extension of FreeVerse Now (Version 1.1). FreeVerse provides secure, real-time access to corporate collaboration information (e-mail, voice mail, fax, calendar, contacts, tasks and notes) from any WAP-enabled wireless device.

FreeVerse’s distinguishing features include telephony integration (allowing users to create voice-generated e-mails and print e-mail attachments to fax machines), upgradeable architecture (standards-based platform that allows for integration of advanced telephony technologies — text-to-speech, voice recognition, wireless Internet conferencing) and availability through a carrier model.

FreeVerse Version 2.0 will upgrade its telephony capabilities to further enhance usability by capitalizing on its upgradeable architecture. Other upgrades include international support, expanded file support for faxing capabilities, ability to fax e-mails as well as attachments.
Visit #7011 or www.ultiverse.com

• WaveLink has announced the initial launch of its mobile Internet strategy. The company is demonstrating a wireless LAN (802.11b) and a wireless WAN (CDPD) running concurrently using a variety of mobile devices.

Two new products on display are the Internet deployment model, Roamer, and the latest version of the company’s network-management product, Mobile Manager. This product offers remote and secure management of an enterprise’s wireless network and its devices.
Visit #8380 or www.wavelink.com

• Jigami’s Jigami mB allows enterprises to securely extend their corporate networks to authorized mobile users. It enables access to corporate e-mail servers and the intranet, for example. Jigami mB is IPSec compliant and incorporates firewalls and VPNs for security. The solution, which uses proprietary acceleration technologies, enhances wireless access speeds by up to 10 times.
Visit #3575 or www.jigami.com