Industry portal launches wireless steel news service

- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -

London, UK: Steelonthenet.com, the international iron and steel industry news and information portal, today launches a new wireless steel industry news reporting service. Aimed at the steelmaking sector business executive, the new service provides steel industry news delivered direct to cell / mobile phones and other wireless devices anywhere around the globe.

Making use of recent advances in the availability of GPRS (an 'always-on' internet-based data service available to users of GSM phones), the new service is especially directed at executives who are 'on the road'. Comments Andrew M Kotas, Steelonthenet.com CEO, "GPRS is typically accessible on most newer cell / mobile phones and on PDAs ('personal digital assistants') in most parts of the industrialised world. Our new wireless service simply marries the news aggregation skills of www.steelonthenet.com with the technological capabilities of GPRS to provide an extremely low cost and internationally seamless news service". Add Kotas, "This is the ideal information service for the steel industry executive who is on the move - perhaps travelling abroad, maybe waiting to catch a plane, perhaps stuck in a cab, or maybe about to go into a meeting and simply wishing to be better informed".

Comments Kotas further "Steelonthenet.com is an information-sharing portal. We are therefore launching the new WAP ('wireless application protocol') service in two forms. One form is a 'light' version - a steel industry news headlines service, which is free to all site visitors. The other form provides fuller news coverage and offers up to ten current headlines on a WAP device, with associated news excerpts - and this version carries a small subscription charge. Our new wireless service is therefore accessible to all - from the materials engineering student who may be on a budget, to the company MD".

- PRESS RELEASE ENDS -

For further information, contact: public.relations@steelonthenet.com. For an online demonstration, registration and subscription information please visit http://www.steelonthenet.com/wap.html.

Press enquiries: +44 (0) 775-149-0885

Dr Andrew M Kotas
Steelonthenet.com
http://www.steelonthenet.com


NOTES FOR EDITORS

About Steelonthenet.com
Steelonthenet.com is a global steel industry news, statistics and information portal that also provides clients with steelmaking sector research, management consulting and other professional support. The site was launched in October 2001, and is owned by UK-based Metals Consulting International Limited.

About WAP
WAP stands for Wireless Application Protocol, which is an application that is used to access information on handheld devices such as mobile phones. WAP is a protocol designed especially for micro-browsers (i.e. browsers for handheld devices, designed to cope with much less complex information than PCs). Just as PC based applications are written in HTML, so WAP applications for micro-browsers are typically written in WML (wireless mark up language).

About GPRS
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a data service available to users of GSM mobile phones. It is often described as 2.5G, that is, a technology that is in between the second (2G) and third (3G) generations of mobile telephones. GPRS provides moderate speed data transfer, sufficient for example for transmission of short text passages and news excerpts.