GPRS and 3G Wireless Applications: Professional Developer's Guide (Paperback)

~ (Author) "For those who enter the world of the mobile Internet for the first time, coming fresh into the business or having some previous experience from..." (more)
Key Phrases: protective coding, mobile evolution, wireless properties, United States, Unwiring the Internet, General Packet Radio Services (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

GPRS and 3G Wireless Applications by Christoffer Andersson guides developers through the steps of programming for the mobile Internet. (Publishers Weekly)

"Now that I have read this book I can understand the articles on the mobile phone business." (CVu - Jnl of the Association of C & C++ Users, October 2001)

Product Description

To ensure competitive advantage for their companies in wireless product development, developers need to understand how wireless technologies work, what impact they have on applications being developed, and how to use them to optimize products for success in the marketplace. Designed to answer these and other wireless development questions, this unique handbook explores how a host of relevant technologies work together with the new worldwide standards for wireless technologies--General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and Third Generation (3G). Leading expert Christoffer Andersson clearly explains how GPRS and 3G control the mobile environment, then goes on to describe how the emerging radio technology of Bluetooth fits in with WAP and Java, how wireless applications work with HTTP and TCP/IP on the Internet, and how to create "always-on" wireless applications.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (April 11, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471414050
• ISBN-13: 978-0471414056
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,141,087 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Overview, June 12, 2001

By	Konstantin J. Zsigo "kzsigo" (East Lansing, MI) - See all my reviews

Generally a good overview of technologies available to wireless developers today, including WAP, Bluetooth, GPRS and 3G. As other reviewers have stated, the scope of the book is rather broad, so there is surface coverage of lots of issues.

However, there is a hidden gem in this book, Chapter 8. This chapter delves into the theory of wireless application development and presents some good foundational strategy for dealing with packet loss, discontinuous service, security holes, and so on. It also provides a good overview of the proper use of caching, compression, and reducing overhead. There is a discussion on the right way to keep the user engaged through a difficult airlink connection, and that's information which is usually ignored in most texts.

Add it to your library!

Konny Zsigo, President; ...

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Solid foundation material, September 16, 2001

By	Mike Tarrani "www.tarrani.com" (Deltona, FL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

If you're looking for a book on wireless application development from a code perspective this is the wrong book. The value of this book is it provides a solid foundation that needs to be in place before coding starts.

It begins with basic concepts of how wireless infrastructure works. Developers can safely ignore this section of the book. I liked it because it sorted out the "moving parts" as well as the technological underpinnings. It also answered a lot of questions I had regarding where standards and the industry as a whole were headed, and the strengths and weaknesses of existing technologies and why 3G is so important. As an aside, I learned one trivial fact that had been bothering me: where did the name "Bluetooth" come from? Answer: It was named after a Danish king, Harald Blatand who brought unity among different groups of people. Blatand means Bluetooth in English. Not only does the name capture the spirit of Bluetooth as a technology, but this piece of trivia might gain you "Alpha Geek" status at a seminar or convention :-)

From chapter 3 on, however, is of paramount interest to architects and developers because it gets into lower level details of GPRS, 3G and Bluetooth. The author provides all of the key characteristics of each technology from which a design and development strategy can be derived. Chapter 6 is where both developers and architects will gain information for performance aspects of their products. The author is meticulous in describing the issues and factors that will arise with protocols (the realities of TCP/IP over wireless in chapter 6 is priceless), and is supported with graphs and diagrams that a developer should carefully go over before writing a single line of code.

Because of my focus in QA and SQA I thought chapter 14 on testing was particularly strong. Again, this is something that developers need to fully understand (as well as the rest of a project team), and the information provided in this chapter fills a large gap in the testing body of knowledge.

In response to previous comments about this book: (1) Although the content on the CD ROM is out of date, the author's web site contains up-to-date artifacts and URLs. (2) I contacted the author directly (contact information is provided in the book) about the missing test documents cited on the cover of the book and found out that last minute copyright issues prevented their inclusion on the CD ROM. He sent me to where these documents could be obtained (for free) and they were well worth the effort. (3) The book is anything but basic - it gets into some low-level details such as timing and state diagrams that are essential for *properly* developing wireless applications.

The author has a talent for packing an incredible amount of information into a paragraph and still holding your interest. He also comes across as authoritative and manages to cover a wide spectrum of issues and facts without compromising on details needed by developers and architects (or anyone who wants to update their knowledge on the latest wireless technologies).

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great GPRS Foundation, June 11, 2001

By A Customer

Andersson states that the book is "ideal for those who know a bit about software/Web development and who want to get into the wireless field." As a member of that group, I found the book to be exactly what I needed: a comprehensive guide into the vast and technical world of GPRS and 3G. The chapters are far reaching in breadth and depth so that the reader walks away with a solid understanding and technical base, as well as clarity into the GPRS and 3G technology arena from an application development and deployment perspective. The three sections are divided up so that the reader is led step by step through the history, applications, relationships, and components of GPRS and 3G. In addition, all the wireless industry lingo and acronyms were very clearly defined, which not only helped me in my reading, but also makes this a great future reference guide. Overall, this book delivered much more than it promised and exceeded expectations presented by previous authors on this topic.