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Inventors of Mobile Internet Access
The inventors of the Internet are known. GPRS was the first worldwide packet data network to provide mobile Internet access anywhere, anytime. GPRS as a service of the cellular radio network GSM offers packet data services like voice, video streaming, social networking, etc. to mobile data terminals. Continuous radio connectivity to the Internet of a mobile terminal on the move is guaranteed during a session by its hand-off to a neighbor cell when needed. In cellular radio networks adjacent cells overlap to enable continuous radio coverage to a moving terminal.

WLAN radio access points (AP) according to standard IEEE 802.11 provide wireless Internet access to movable terminals roaming at local hot spots (shopping mall, airport, etc.) or operated at home. Wireless Internet access is available in limited size areas only since WLAN technology is not usable for wide area cellular networks. The Mobile Internet Protocol supplements the Internet Protocol by enabling a terminal on the move to connect to the Internet whenever radio coverage by a WLAN AP is available. WLAN based wireless networks can neither provide anywhere connectivity nor continuous data support for terminals on the move, owing to their small cell size and patchy radio coverage. Anywhere/anytime mobile Internet access by mobile terminals at medium to high speed of movement is available only from cellular radio networks like GSM/GPRS and successor systems like W-CDMA (UMTS) and LTE.

GPRS as the first system enabled worldwide mobile Internet access through the presence of GSM. The inventors of GPRS known to be Bernhard Walke and his student Peter Decker, accordingly, can be considered to be the inventors of mobile Internet access. This invention’s importance is underlined by the number of mobile terminals connected: In 2010 the Internet counted 500 Mio fixed terminals connected compared to five billion wireless/mobile terminals with a slow further increase in fixed connections but an estimated number of 50 billion mobile connections in 2020. Google search for „Inventor of mobile Internet“ returns Unwired Planet Inc., a company naming itself „The Founder of the Mobile Internet“. Its business is exploitation of a patent portfolio. The company’s GPRS-relevant (Ericsson) patents are all referencing the work published by the inventors of GPRS.