vices, although the number is growing as wireless data applications evolve and penetrate the market. In Europe, however, the story is quite different. Because mobile operators in Europe charge relatively high prices for text messages, the service is enormously lucrative. In response to the game show "Big Brother," for example, which invited the viewing audience to actively take part in the outcome of each episode, 5.4 million text mes- sage-based votes were cast, generating £1.35 million in revenue. The UK- based service provider mmO2 enjoyed dramatically higher revenues in July 2002 because of the "Big Brother" message flood. GSM is now present in the United States through Cingular-the joint venture wireless provider owned by SBC (60 percent) and Bell- south (40 percent); AT&T Wireless, which recently sold its wireless holdings to Cingular; and T-Mobile, the only all-GSM network provider in the country. T-Mobile's activity in the Wi-Fi space is equally impres- sive as they "innervate" coffee shops all over the world with broadband wireless access. Their activities have an unintended positive conse- quence: Many of the Wi-Fi service providers use DSL as the backhaul technology to carry customer traffic back to the CO, resulting in increased sales of DSL. Related to GSM is an enhancement called Enhanced Data Rate for Global Evolution (EDGE). Originally developed by Ericsson and called Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. Access Technologies Access Technologies GSM384, EDGE allows a service provider to offer 384 Kbps service when eight GSM timeslots are used-a less-than-efficient use of available bandwidth. The conversion to EDGE requires that an additional trans- ceiver be added to base stations and naturally requires the use of hand- sets that can handle the additional protocol. The initial devices that are planned will offer high