3G Mobile Phone Applications in Telemedicine - A Survey

In this paper, we will review current 3G mobile phone applications in telemedicine. Mobile phones are the backbone of mobile communications and have experienced explosive growth. 3G mobiles provide a next generation mobile phone service that aims to offer high-speed 2Mb/s communication using high transmission efficiency in the high frequency 2GHz band. This offers a groundbreaking way to use mobile phones. Mobile phone service became ubiquitously available throughout Japan as 3G mobile phone offers major advantages for interactive video traffic. With the emergence of mobile phone networks, a number of systems which use mobile phones to transfer vital signs such as electrocardiogram (ECG) and heart rate have increased instead of early mobile medical system using satellites to establish communications between remote sites and base hospitals. Applications of mobile phone have become diversified and derive many services. It is predicted that the proportion of 3G mobile phones would overtake that of 2G mobile phones by 2006.