Search BBC
BBC World Service
BBC BBC News BBC Sport BBC Weather BBC World Service Worldservice languages
 
spacer gif
You are in: Home page > News English > Words in the News
Learning English
spacer gif
 Words in the News
INTRO 
  Mobile phone technology is improving all the time. Soon it may be possible to get the Internet on your phone. But, would you want it? BBC Science correspondent Toby Murcott reported.
IN FULL 
  AudioListen to the report in full
Mobile phone

17th August 2000

Mobile phone technology

NEWS 1 
 AudioListen to the first part of the report
  Current mobile phones have a very small bandwidth and sending data is slow and cumbersome. Even so, a technology known as WAP - Wireless Application Protocol - has been available for about a year and offers a kind of miniature internet on a mobile phone. WAP was heavily promoted when launched but has not lived up to the early predictions. The slow speeds and limited service mean that WAP is seen more as a curiosity than a serious replacement for the Internet. However, the next generation of mobile phones will have much greater bandwidth and offer a far wider range of services.
  AudioListen to the words
WORDS 
 

bandwidth - the amount of information or data that a mobile phone can send and receive at the same time is described as its bandwidth

cumbersome - inconvenient

miniature - very small, tiny

promoted - something that is promoted is advertised and publicised

launched - when a product is launched it is released to the public for the first time so that they can buy it

lived up to - if you live up to something then you do what others believe you are able to do

a curiosity - something with novelty value but not taken seriously is a curiosity

replacement - a replacement is something which takes the place of another object or, in this case, form of technology

NEWS 2  AudioListen to the second part of the report
  They predict that the vast majority of internet connections will be by mobile communication devices closer to pocket computers than portable telephones. The technology for this is being developed but it remains to be seen whether people really will want to swap large clear desktop computers for tiny screens in their pockets.
  AudioListen to the words
WORDS  

predict - if you make an educated guess about what will happen in the future, then you predict

vast - big, huge

devices - small tools and machines are devices

portable - something you can carry is portable

it remains to be seen - ...it has not yet been proven whether.....

to swap - if you swap something then you exchange it for something else

   Read about the background in BBC News Online
BBC copyright
 
Learning English | News English | Business English | Watch and Listen
 
Grammar and Vocabulary | Communicate | Quizzes | For teachers
 
Downloads | FAQ | Contact us