Panel on technologies

Arun Tanksali (Jataayu Software)

Google: What is the general WAP content and is it coming from mobile phones? Are unique visitors tracked, do we know how many actual phones are accessing the web?

Some of the content is being accessed via a cellphone card/cable onto a laptop, but some also directly on the phone. The figures available from Jataayu are for usage via mixtures of the two. Users generally make at least one request a month. Figures given cover the whole of India. Not all GPRS activated handsets are accessing the web

Pana Software (?): How do users feel/what are the differences between actively going online by going to a browser, or passively by accessing an application on their handset? Is there are regular pattern of the types of data/requests being made?

WAP push is becoming more and more popular. When users hit a site, they tend to browse at least a couple of pages, but not too many more in most cases. Some requests are kicked out because the handset cannot service them

Stephane Boyera: In terms of the importance of entertainment, do we know where this is big, i.e. in big towns, small towns, etc?

This data is not currently available

Me/dot Mobi site Galore guy: What types of entertainment are popular?

Ringtones are big driver of usage, and traffic/revenue

Sun/Java lady: How old are the people downloading ringtones, entertainment, etc?

This data is still not available, although it would be useful for targeting ads etc. and is something we are hoping to collect at some stage in the (near) future

Justin: Do we know how people are accessing the mobile web – is it through a browser with a direct request, or via WAP push, and do we know the click-through rates if it is via WAP push?

Many requests are via WAP push, although we don’t know exactly how many people are either attempting/failing to get through

C. McCathieNeville (Opera)

(Daneesh): What about SMS? Is it integrated into the system?

Yes. Widgets are also available to access SMS, and the browser could also be adapted so it has direct SMS capability, but this has not been integrated yet. Footprint on the device is an issue. SMS has been ‘considered’ as the carrier for browsing data (as opposed to GPRS) but it would be expensive to develop (and why would you anyway?). GPRS is ‘generally’ available so this was the carrier technology of choice for Opera

Stephane Boyera: What are the basic handset requirements for Mini? Have Opera considered a low-end handset browser, maybe using SMS etc? Do you have any stats for usage patterns etc?

Opera is a Java midlet so the user needs Java on their handset to run it. The application uses around 98Kb, the ‘lite’ version about half of that. The proxy determines the memory capability of the handset and delivers the page to suit that, even if it means splitting the page into 17 pieces

As for a low-end browser, this hasn’t been considered yet. But we have a lot of developing country users – Bangladesh was a previous big user, as was/is Nigeria. Eastern Europe is an important market for Opera, although it is being IE

We don’t have many usage stats due to privacy issues since we agree not to be nosey into people’s activities online

What are the security implications in the browser?

There are gateway issues, but there aren’t really ways around that. But data is compressed and encrypted until it gets to the proxy server. People have to trust Opera, basically

Dot Mobi guy: How do you service different types of content?

Opera is not about making WAP sites work on Mini, but making ‘proper’ websites work well

N. Ramani (Sun Microsystems)

Questions more of a discussion, and time restricted to a couple of minutes. Nothing to scribe