The tremendous surge of interest and development in the area of wireless data in recent times has caused worldwide operators, infrastructure and terminal manufacturers, and content developers to collaborate on an unprecedented scale, in an area notorious for the diversity of standards and protocols. The collaborative efforts of the WAP Forum have devised and continue to develop a set of protocols that provide a common environment for the development of advanced telephony services and Internet access for the wireless market. If the WAP protocols were to be as successful as transmission control protocol (TCP)/Internet protocol (IP), the boom in mobile communications would be phenomenal. Indeed, the WAP browser should do for mobile Internet what Netscape did for the Internet.
As mentioned earlier, industry players from content developers to operators can explore the vast opportunity that WAP presents. As a fixed-line technology, the Internet has proved highly successful in reaching the homes of millions worldwide. However, mobile users until now have been forced to accept relatively basic levels of functionality, over and above voice communications and are beginning to demand the industry to move from a fixed to a mobile environment, carrying the functionality of a fixed environment with it.
Initially, services are expected to run over the well-established SMS bearer, which will dictate the nature and speed of early applications. Indeed, GSM currently does not offer the data rates that would allow mobile multimedia and Web browsing. With the advent of GPRS, which aimed at increasing the data rate to 115 kbps, as well as other emerging high-bandwidth bearers, the reality of access speeds equivalent or higher to that of a fixed-line scenario become evermore believable. GPRS is seen by many as the perfect partner for WAP, with its distinct time slots serving to manage data packets in a way that prevents users from being penalized for holding standard circuit-switched connections.
Handset Manufacturers and WAP Services
It is expected that mobile terminal manufacturers will experience significant change as a result of WAP technology�a chance that will impact the look and feel of the hardware they produce. The main issues faced by this arm of the industry concern the size of mobile phones, power supplies, display size, usability, processing power, and the role of personal digital assistants (PDAs) and other mobile terminals.
With over 75 percent of the world's key handset manufacturers already involved in the WAP Forum and announcing the impending release of WAP�compatible handsets, the drive toward new and innovative devices is quickly gathering pace. The handsets themselves will contain a microbrowser that will serve to interpret the byte code (generated from the WML/WMLS content) and display interactive content to the user.
The services available to users will be wide-ranging in nature, as a result of the open specifications of WAP, their similarity to the established and accepted Internet model, and the simplicity of the WML/WMLS languages with which the applications will be written. Information will be available in push-and-pull functionality, with the ability for users to interact with services via both voice and data interfaces. Web browsing as experienced by the desktop user, however, is not expected to be the main driver behind WAP as a result of time and processing restraints.
Real-time applications and services demand small and key pieces of information that will fuel the success of WAP in the mobile marketplace. Stock prices, news, weather, and travel are only some of the areas in which WAP will provide services for mobile users. Essentially, the WAP application strategy involves taking existing services that are common within a fixed-line environment and tailoring them to be purposeful and user-friendly in a wireless environment.
Empowering the user with the ability to access a wealth of information and services from a mobile device will create a new battleground. Mobile industry players will fight to provide their customers with sophisticated, value-added services. As mobile commerce becomes a more secure and trusted channel by which consumers may conduct their financial affairs, the market for WAP will become even more lucrative.
WAP in the Competitive Environment
Competition for WAP protocols could come from a number of sources:
subscriber identity module (SIM) toolkit� The use of SIMs or smart cards in wireless devices is already widespread and used in some of the service sectors.
Windows CE� This is a multitasking, multithreaded operating system from Microsoft designed for including or embedding mobile and other space-constrained devices.
JavaPhoneTM� Sun Microsystems is developing PersonalJavaTM and a JavaPhone TMAPI, which is embedded in a Java TMvirtual machine on the handset. NEPs will be able to build cellular phones that can download extra features and functions over the Internet; thus, customers will no longer be required to buy a new phone to take advantage of improved features.
The advantages that WAP can offer over these other methods are the following:
open standard, vendor independent
network-standard independent
transport mechanism�optimised for wireless data bearers
application downloaded from the server, enabling fast service creation and introduction, as opposed to embedded software
