A few months ago, I met the founder of www.wireless.co.il by chance in the business lounge at the airport. He told me that he was creating a portal for the wireless industry that would be even deeper than Amazon.com. As the address was easy to remember, I checked out the site and to be frank - it sucked. However, the guy impressed me as someone who knew his business, so I continued to check the site periodically.
Surprise, surprise. The site no longer sucks. In fact, it is now truly the portal for the wireless industry. It literally contains everything about the industry and a tremendous amount of valuable information and resources.
It is impossible to describe all of the features of the site in one column, so you must go there and see for yourself. However, today's Enable will point out some of the special sections of the site. As you will see below, we believe that the forums and association section is extremely valuable.
Glossary Of Wireless Terminology
The site provides a searchable glossary of wireless terms. A nice feature is that you can search the glossary from the home page of the site, and/or go to the glossary and see an alphabetical list of terms.
Now you can finally understand "words" like "Bluetooth," "CDBP," "GSM," "TDMA," "SID," and many others.
Associations And Forums
The site also contains detailed information on key industry associations and forums. This includes:
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WAP Forum
The de facto world wide standard for providing Internet communications and advanced telephony services on digital mobile phones, pagers, personal digital assistants and other wireless terminals.
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Nokia Forum
Targeted at developers of WAP-based applications and services. Includes access to server beta releases and toolkits.
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Ericsson Forum
This is the site to visit for product, service and application developers, as well as for content providers. Ericsson's Developers Zone has been created to help you to access the wide range of mobile application technologies and products Ericsson can offer.
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Wireless Data Forum
WDF is the place to get connected to the leading companies that offer solutions today to extend the Internet and help over 50 million mobile professionals do more - from anywhere.
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The Global Mobile Commerce Forum
A diverse group of companies from around the world, companies that want to have a say in the future of mobile commerce, working together towards a future where consumers will be able to use their mobile phones (or other devices) to carry out their business wherever they are, whenever they want.
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PDA Association
The PDA Industry Association is the non-profit organization dedicated to developing the PDA marketplace. We facilitate the adoption of PDA and hand-held technology through our resource center, and through on-going research, education and interaction among vendors and corporate end-users.
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Veteran Wireless Operators Association
Today, in its seventy-third year, the VWOA serves as both a link to the history or radio, as well as a bridge to the future. Its members have been, and continue to be, on the front lines of the development of radio and television broadcasting, satellite communications, and the entire digital revolution.
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Wireless Communications Association
The Wireless Communications Association International (WCA) represents the fixed broadband wireless access industry worldwide.
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The IEEE 802.16 Working Group on Broadband Wireless Access Standards
The mission of Working Group 802.16 is "to develop standards and recommended practices to support the development and deployment of fixed broadband wireless access systems." 802.16 is a unit of the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee, the premier trans-national forum for wireless networking standardization and the source of Ethernet standards.
Magazines and Journals
The site also contains direct links to a slew of relevant magazines and journals. This includes Wireless Week, Wireless World, Wireless Today and Wireless Development. There are also links to technical and business magazines.
Almost every portal claims to provide a vast amount of valuable content. Most never deliver but www.wireless.co.il does. In my opinion, anyone in the wireless industry must review it at least once a week, if not every day.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on June 13, 2000.