The Web in Your Palm: Browsing the Web on a Mobile Phone

It is no more than a decade and a half when the internet came to the Philippines in 1994 (according to my research) in the once glorious dial-up connection. Then there was the milestone in internet connectivity, the arrival of broadband, the most popular of which, mostly among residential subscribers, is DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), with the average downlink speed of 384 Kbps. Although this is not the fastest, and certainly much lacking as opposed to other countries' connections, to someone who just upgraded from the dial-up community, this is something sent from the heavens above.

Then came wireless web connectivity options - WiFi, WAP, GPRS, and 3G, being the most, along with WiFi, among others. WiFi was very popular with notebook owners, and 3G more with mobile handset owners, since WiFi handsets are not as available as 3G handsets. It became popular because of its promise to deliver speeds comparable to residential DSL, and up to 1.4 Mbps if the operator supports HSDPA (Globe Telecom).

But will operators in the Philippines be able to give this promise? For Smart 3G, I think they quite did it, for my mobile phone browsing. Though not supporting HSDPA yet, unlike Globe, they were quite able to deliver decent speeds. I can do decent web browsing on the go without a computer.

I use a Nokia N73, and Nokia's web browser sure is amazing! I can really view most web pages the way I view them on a computer. The browser's mini map was a great implementation! I can check my mail on the go, search for stuff to read, download music, and watch videos on YouTube Mobile (it automatically redirects here), although, recently, I can no longer download videos from YouTube Mobile. Maybe this is a network-related concern?

Anyway, the only downside to this is the small screen that can make reading a little less friendly, and the keypad. I'd much prefer a QWERTY keypad, but they come in business phones, which sport features that I would very much want to use, but also lacking in a lot of features college students like me would like, hence I incline to prefering multimedia phones, aside from the reason that business phones are expensive. LOL! :D