Written by Sean McDonald
APR 2000

WAP, Wireless Application Protocol, is the collaborative work of the world's foremost mobile phone producers to develop a global standard protocol not owned or controlled by any single entity. Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, and Phone.com are responsible for founding the WAP forum and designing the industry wide specification for application development across wireless communications networks. The specification aims to define a set of protocols. Such protocols cover development issues such as application, session, transaction, security and transport layers so that operators, manufacturers and developers can take advantage of the emerging market that has huge potential.

Since WAP was developed to be an open standard, the potential for application development seems limitless with such applications as a microbrowser, scripting facilities, e-mail World Wide Web (WWW) to mobile-handset messaging and mobile to telefax access already covered in the defined WAP application environment (WAE). WAP enabled phones contain a microbrowser for viewing WAP content. The content is coded in the WAP scripting language, wireless markup language script (WMLScript) that makes optimum use of small displays and single-handed navigation. WAP content is also scalable from a simple two-line text display devise to full graphical GUI capable devices.

The wireless environment is faced with unique constraints. So WAP uses a binary transmission that has greater compression of data and is optimized for the wireless constraints such as long latency, low bandwidth and intermittent coverage. What this means for users is easy, secure access to internet services such as messaging, financial transactions, entertainment and even intranet access such as corporate databases. With over 75 percent of the world’s key handset manufacturers already involved in WAP, competition should be fierce between the mobile industry players in developing sophisticated applications. This will only benefit the consumer with a huge range of products and pricing.

Initially, WAP services are expected to be more practical and not too graphics intensive as that seen on the Internet such as multimedia and web browsing. This is because initially services will run over the established networks such as GSM that cannot offer the data rates needed. However, with the introduction of general packet radio services (GPRS), aimed at reaching a data rate of 115kpbs, it might not be too long before access speeds similar or even exceeding that of fixed-line services over the Internet are a reality. When that day arrives, the mobile experience is sure to be exciting.

With so much support from industry players, the future of WAP looks exciting. Australia has already seen its mobile service providers adopt the technology with WAP services already up and running. By the end of 2000, it is expected that 100 million WAP enabled devices will be in the mobile market, and with the estimated one billion mobile phone subscribers world wide by the end of 2002, the possibilities of the wireless environment and of the players involved in the manufacturing and development of applications appears to be limitless and lucrative.

For more information, please visit WAP Forum