The introduction of new mobile services such as WAP, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), calendar and contact synchronization, as well as a host of other possibilities, means mobile phones will increasingly require new and updated configuration settings before they can successfully connect to network servers.

In many Third World and developing countries, the distance between people in need of health care and the facilities capable of providing it constitutes a major obstacle to improving health. One solution involves creating medical diagnostic applications small enough to fit into objects already in common use, such as cell phones — in effect, bringing the hospital to the patient.

3G is the third generation of mobile phone standards and technology, superseding 2.5G, and preceding 4G. It is based on the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) family of standards under the International Mobile Telecommunications programme, IMT-2000.