Wireless Technology Applied to GIS

At present, there is a growing interest in wireless applications, due to the fact that the technology begins to support them at reasonable costs. In this paper, the authors present the technology currently available for use in wireless environments, focusing on Geographic Information Systems. As an example, the authors present a newly developed platform for the commercialization of advanced geographical information services for use in portable devices. This platform uses available mobile telephone networks and wireless local area networks, but it is completely scalable to new technologies such as third generation mobile networks. Users access the service using a vector map player that runs on a Personal Digital Assistant with wireless access facilities and a Global Positioning System receiver.