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Wireless Application
Protocol (WAP)
One the most recent and significant changes in the business environment has been the growing demand for mobility. Customers, partners and employees are putting increasing pressure on corporate IT departments to provide them with access to the information resources and services of a company any time of the day – and from any location. In 1998, 73 per cent of European corporations were using some kind of mobile data solution and 91 per cent of those who were not said, that they would by 1999. In addition, 60 per cent of the mobile data users in the United States said they wanted to use a mobile phone for the mobile data instead of a computer or some other device (Source: The Yankee Group). At present, the main use of mobile data is restricted to the occasional fax and SMS message. The more adventurous users are beginning to use cellular data connections instead of land lines and modems for downloading e-mail, but none of these application provides the rich functionality on offer via today’s Internet-based applications. This is all set to change, however. It is estimated that in 2005 there will be about one billion mobile phone subscribers, and that a substantial portion of the phones sold that year will have multimedia capabilities (Source: Nokia). This means that there will be an explosion in the number of services that can be provided to a mobile phone, and this will provide a huge market potential for corporations. Besides offering their existing services via a new mobile channel, providers will have unlimited possibilities to create new services and products for their customers. The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is the platform for the new generation of "media phones", providing an open universal standard for bringing Internet content and advanced value added services to mobile phones and other wireless devices. The WAP Forum – consisting of the likes of Motorola, Ericsson and Nokia, amongst others - is the industry association that has developed the WAP standard. The primary goal of the WAP Forum is to bring together companies from all segments of the wireless industry value chain to ensure product interoperability and growth of the wireless market. In order to understand the business potential of WAP, it is important to bear in mind the characteristics of a mobile phone as an access device: it is mobile (of course), personal, trusted, and usable by almost anybody. The phone has become a very personal device, one over which the user has full control. The user is able to choose where, when, and how he or she uses the device, making it a key component in the offering of truly personalised services. The user can communicate at anytime regardless of location, and the mobile phone is also a trusted device. The SIM is allocated to an individual and can be locked and unlocked via one or more passwords. The ability for a service provider to positively identify a user via the connecting device (providing it hasn’t been stolen, of course) makes it a natural platform for secure applications. Finally, the mobile phone is a highly usable device. It is always at hand, immediately ready to use without time-consuming boot sequences, and readily connected – no hassle with those modem configurations and messy wires! These characteristics make tomorrow’s media phone the ideal platform for usable mobile applications. This is especially true as we see the division between work and free time blurring, with many users spending more and more time on the move, away from both work and home. WAP applications help the consumer to reduce the hassle related to many routine activities, freeing up time for more meaningful activities. Banking is probably the one most often cited application area that will benefit from WAP. Being able to check your bank account and carry out transactions with a mobile phone is a very lucrative offering. The cellular phone can also alert a user when the threshold limit of a stock rate is passed. Investors thus do not have to constantly watch the stock rates on their own, and they can react immediately wherever they are. On-line ticketing is another domain where mobility opens up interesting opportunities. For example, a business traveller who realises that an important meeting will extend over its planned duration can use his mobile terminal to change his flight to the next available connection. The whole area of "infotainment" presents an important business potential. Being able to receive simple, but in many cases vital, pieces of information such as weather, news and sports, traffic information, white and yellow pages, as well as public transportation schedules on a mobile terminal will make life easier for most of us. Roughly speaking, the WAP standard defines two things: an application environment and an application protocol. The application environment consists both a mark-up language, WML, that allows programmers to define the application's user interface in a device-independent way, and a programming language, WMLScript, that allows programmers to embed executable logic in their applications. In practice, these are realised in the microbrowser environment in a mobile terminal, which is conceptually very similar to a Web browser. Because the WAP applications can be downloaded on demand and discarded when no longer needed, the application environment also allows for dynamic extension of the terminal's user interface. Although WAP will be equally applicable to many of today’s mobile computing devices, one of the major attractions is the ability to host it on one of the ultra-portable media phones. From the technical aspect, this implies that the device will have a limited display and restricted man-machine interface capabilities. Looking at the issue of usability, WAP applications and utilisation environments will be fundamentally different from those in the wire-based Internet. People on the move typically use mobile phones with one hand, and in such environment, the time for "surfing" and "browsing" is very limited. Instead, quick access to the information is the mode of use, and the Wireless Mark-up Language (WML), which is part of WAP, is specifically designed for this kind of use. The enabling platform at the service provider is the WAP Server, such as that produced by Nokia. This is a software solution that connects WAP-enabled mobile handsets to content and applications hosted by Web servers or, indeed, any other servers on the Internet or intranet. Connection is via Short Message Service (SMS) or Circuit Switched Data (SSD), and the WAP Server provides seamless working with HTTP servers, fetching native WML and WMLScripts content, or converting standard HTML to WML on the fly. The WAP Server can also push information to remote devices, providing the alerting and "infotainment" announcements mentioned earlier. Because WAP enables Internet access to mobile devices, however, there are some important implications to bear in mind. The main one is in relation to bandwidth. Although the coming broadband networks, such as HSCSD, GPRS and UMTS, will offer increased bandwidth, initially, at least, their coverage is likely to be limited to major cities. In addition, even the peak bandwidth, that is 2 Mbps for stationery terminals and some 384 Kbps for mobile terminals, will be significantly less than wireline networks today. It is important, therefore, that WAP is designed with this limitation in mind. In the future, however, users of mobile phones will be offered relevant personal services that suit their needs. Today people must carry with them at least a wallet, a calendar and a phone. Soon it will be only a phone - a media phone, which enables you to make calls, pay bills, buy tickets, check e-mail and manage your agenda. That has to be the ultimate in thin clients. Summary
CDMA - Code Division Multiple Access. GPRS - General Packet Radio Service. GSM – Global System for Mobile Communications (originally Groupe Special Mobile in France). TDMA – Time Division Multiple Access. UMTS - Universal Mobile Telecommunications Services. URL - Universal Resource Locator WAP – Wireless Access Protocol. WAE - Wireless Application Environment WML - Wireless Mark-up Language WTA - Wireless Telephony Application WTAI - Wireless Telephony Application Interface WSP - Wireless Session Protocol WTP - Wireless Transaction Protocol WTLS - Wireless Transport Layer Security WDP - Wireless Datagram Protocol |
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