Real HTTP networking via mobile phones?

Java on Mobile Devices J2ME
#1

Hi,
I’ve been playing around with J2ME for a while and really enjoy it - it’s like the ‘good’ old days of small API coding.

Anyway I have a HTTP based networking Midlet that runs great over emulators, but my question is what are network connections like on real over the air mobile phones?
Do connections drop constantly?
What are the real bits per second figures like?
Are the costs to the customer of being online prohibitive? (I’m in the UK, but I wonder about USA & Far East too).

If you’ve had an live experience with networked J2ME computer I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Thanks in advance,
pond.

#2

The answer is: it depends.

Your latency and bandwidth depend on the network technology (e.g. GSM, GPRS, CDMA, 3G). Round-trip latency varies but with GPRS I’m seeing about 2 seconds usually, occasionally 5 or even 15 seconds. Bandwidth actually usually isn’t an issue, as your J2ME device doesn’t have the CPU power to process high rates of data.

As for reliability, my experience here in Helsinki is very good, it basically just works. But I was in San Francisco for JavaOne, and there the mobile networks were very much less reliable, frequently dropping calls etc.

There’s a lot of variability between devices’ HTTP implementations and mobile networks’ gateways (e.g. WAP gateways), so be prepared to test on each device and network. This used to be a major problem, but seems to be getting better all the time.

Cost to the customer again depends on your operator and also how much data your MIDlet is sending. But mobile data is usually priced to make it practical to surf the web from a laptop connected to a phone, and a MIDlet probably won’t be sending amounts of data comparable to typical web site advertising images.

#3

Thanks for the info! That gives me enough confidence move ahead with this project.

pond