I have to be cautious how I report lest I be labelled as partial/biased to C&WJ. At this time we're seeing a media battle between C&WJ and Digicel over this GSM/GPRS issue and the last thing that we would want is to be labelled by either of them (or some other organization) as being biased towards any particular company. The fact is, all the major players in the local telecoms market are given an opportunity to share press releases, provide information on company news and offer product and service testing, but to date only C&WJ has taken us up on this offer. This is done with all of the major tech sites out there - companies giving them press releases and using them to test products and services.

What is GSM/GPRS?

I believe that it would be useful to define these terms before we start using them all over the place. Following are the definitions of GSM and GPRS according to webopedia.com.

GSM

Short for Global System for Mobile Communications, one of the leading digital cellular systems. GSM uses narrowband TDMA, which allows eight simultaneous calls on the same radio frequency.

GSM was first introduced in 1991. As of the end of 1997, GSM service was available in more than 100 countries and has become the de facto standard in Europe and Asia.

GPRS

Short for General Packet Radio Service, a standard for wireless communications which runs at speeds up to 115 kilobits per second, compared with current GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) systems' 9.6 kilobits.

GPRS, which supports a wide range of bandwidths, is an efficient use of limited bandwidth and is particularly suited for sending and receiving small bursts of data

C&WJ's GSM/GPRS

What is there to say? They both work ok. The GSM phone gives me the same coverage as my other C&WJ and Digicel phones. Bear in mind that I'm not an island-wide traveller, so my experience may not be a typical one.  With it I'm also able to connect to their GPRS network and use the phone's built-in WAP browser to visit WAP sites. The speed is impressive for accessing the mostly text-only WAP sites like wap.yahoo.com, and this opinion was also expressed by someone else who saw a demo.

The GPRS is impressive, but then again it's my first time using GPRS so being a first time user it would impress me. It is truly amazing that I'm now able to use my GPRS equipped notebook and wirelessly connect to the Internet anywhere there is signal coverage. Equipping the notebook to access the GPRS requires a GPRS PC card modem that fits in an available type II PC card slot.  Once installed, you are able to access the GPRS network wherever you have GSM signal coverage.  The included software has a signal strength meter much like a mobile phone's signal strength meter so knowing the quality of your connection is never a problem. What I'd really like to do is install the GPRS PC card modem on my PocketPC using an adapter, then I'd be even more mobile. Let me tell you, wide area wireless is truly liberating because at this time I'm actually using it to post this review online while I'm waiting for a meeting to start. The potential applications locally for this technology is startling.

That's pretty much what I have to say for now. Look out for further updates as we draw closer to the official public launch of C&WJ's GSM/GPRS service.