provider of mobile services

[ray well]

hi,

i'm new to mobile computing.. i have a project that i need to develop within
..net for mobile services, so that people with enabled phones or pda can
access the site.

we first have to get a host provider who will broadcast these pages so we
can test our app, not all web hosting providers do that.

i would appreciate if i could get some recomendations of providers? i don't
know how these providers call themselves, so i don't know what to search for
on the internet.

is there some site that lists them?

are these providers regional, or do they broadcast all over the country?

thanks,

ray

 

[Andrew Enfield \(MS\)]

If I'm understanding your question, and you're using ASP.NET (I'd gather
this, as you're posting to an ASP.NET newsgroup), then one resource is the
list of hosting companies on the http://asp.net site, at this URL:
http://www.asp.net/Hosters/.

 

[ray well]

andrew

thanks for the link.

i wasn't looking for a general .net hosting service, i was aware of that.

i'm looking for a hosting site so that people using an enabled pda, or a
browser enabled phone, could connect to a site over the air without needing
a physical connection. this site in addition to having the net framwork,
also needs to broadcast web requests over the air.

i would appreciate some info for this.

thanks

ray

 

[Andrew Enfield \(MS\)]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'broadcast web requests over the air.' An
internet-enabled phone or PDA can access content in one of two ways (at
least as I understand it):
- Pull. At a high level, this is no different than accessing the internet
from a PC. The connection happens wirelessly over GPRS, CDMA 1x, or whatever
transport the phone/PDA uses, but again, at a high level, the phone is just
requesting content from a server, and the server is just returning that
content. If you're using the ASP. NET mobile controls to author pages, you
just need a provider that has ASP .NET, as well as internet-enabled phones
or PDAs.
- Push. SMS (or perhaps there are other 'push' methods?). Most providers -
AT&T, T-Mobile, etc. - have an email interface to their SMS systems, so you
can send an email message to a particular address - like (e-mail address removed), I
think - and an SMS message will be sent to a particular phone. I don't have
any experience with push beyond this, so I don't know if you'd be able to do
what you're talking about, or if there are other push options. If you want
more info here, this newsgroup probably isn't the best place - not sure
where else off the top of my head you could check.

Hope this helps.

 

[ray well]

andrew,

thanks for your response.

i'm new the whole concept of mobile development. here is what i need to do.
i need users to be able to access a site from their pda/enabled-phone. this
site supplies them with info derived from databases done thru asp net and
ado net.

my understanding was that the host who is hosting the site needs to
broadcast the requested pages from their own site wirelessly over the air.
and was looking for such a provider.

what i understand from your answer quoted below is that the broadcasting is
a function of the users of the pda/enabled-phone. in other words the phone
company does the providing. the phone company receives the page request from
a browser running on the pda, they then execute the request at their place
on a pc, and feed the return
back to to pda's browser.

if i'm correct with my understanding of this, then i don't have to worry
about the site host. i can use any regular provider that has .net framework
installed and a
windows web server.

if i'm right, then what is the meaning of a mobile project, in what way is a
mobile project different than a regular ASP .NET application? is it that the
form size is constrained, or something like that?

do regualr wireless phone providers like Verison, ATT have GPRS, CDMA 1x? in
short what would i need to do so i can debug this from the users end. i
guess i would need to get an enabled device (would u know what the technical
name for this is so i know what to ask for?), and an enabled phone line
(again what is the technical name for this service?)

thanks again

ray


--------------------------
Pull. At a high level, this is no different than accessing the internet
from a PC. The connection happens wirelessly over GPRS, CDMA 1x, or whatever
transport the phone/PDA uses, but again, at a high level, the phone is just
requesting content from a server, and the server is just returning that
content. If you're using the ASP. NET mobile controls to author pages, you
just need a provider that has ASP .NET, as well as internet-enabled phones
or PDAs.

 

[ray well]

thanks juan, i now get the hang of the whole thing, and will try it out. ray