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WAP The World in Your Pocket

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VoicenData Bureau
New Update

Remember

the time you wanted to find out Tendulkar’s current score

while you were travelling to your office. The long frustrating

wait in the queue at the railway ticket booking counter when you

sighed, "Alas! If only I could surf the Internet now for

some cool sites!" Also, the times when you desperately

wanted to sell off the shares of a sinking company right there

and then caught between a major traffic jam between Andheri and

Bandra in Mumbai.

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Here

comes the mobile phone, which can take care of all these

specific needs and much more. Soon, you will be able to

literally "click and run", once companies start

offering you Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)-based services

through mobile phones. The greatest draw would be that one would

be free to roam and yet be a cellphone away from the great

information library and communication system called the

Internet.

This is different from the

current situation where you have to connect the mobile phone to

a laptop and dial from the laptop to access the Internet. With

WAP services, you will not need to have a computer beside you,

as the mobile phone will act as a small pocket-sized computer,

which will effortlessly connect to the WAP content out there in

the Internet through the wireless network of your cellular

operator. Of course, the cellphone used has to be different from

what you use today in order to accommodate the Internet on it.

And needless to say, this might be a costly service, as even the

ordinary cellular service on which WAP service will run, is

still not within the reach of most segments of the Indian

society in terms of price.

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What

Is WAP?

After years

of research to bring the Internet direct on to the mobile

phone, the wireless communication industry might have just

found a way in Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). WAP is a

wireless device platform that has been developed by the WAP

Forum–a forum comprising the leading players in wireless

communications technologies, mobile computing, mobile

services, and other software development and services. The

mission of the platform and the Forum that has developed it is

to provide a universal standard for accessing Internet content

and value-added services using wireless devices such as a

mobile phone.

WAP version 1.1 is the

first series of specifications that has been finalized to

enable the initial rollout of WAP services. Though it lacks

several features like push services, user profiles, WDP

tunneling, wireless telephony application, etc., which are

supposed to be incorporated in the soon to be finalized WAP

version 1.2, the first batch of services have already been

developed using these



specifications.



What

Exactly Is WAP Services?




WAP services can be any information-, entertainment-, or
e-commerce-related service offered using WAP as a platform and

media to store and deliver the voice, data, or video to mobile

terminals. From a cellular service provider to a newspaper to a

flower vendor, anybody can provide WAP services. All that is to

be done is to host the WAP content or application through

Internet. It is similar to hosting web content. The only

exception here is that the content travels the last mile to a

cellphone. A piece of middleware called WAP gateway, installed

in the mobile service provider’s network, translates the

Internet content into a form that can be received by a cellular

phone.

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Though WAP services are

quite new, there are some well-known WAP service providers.

Cellular companies like NTT DoCoMo and Radio Linja already

provide these services in Japan and Sweden respectively. News

agencies like CNN and Reuters also have WAP content that can be

accessed through cellphones. And recently there are number of

WAP portals coming up as well. One of them is Waply.com. Another

is Yahoo! Mobile.

One can access these

services through a local mobile call if the local cellular

service provider has a WAP gateway installed in his network.

Since Indian cellular companies have not yet installed a WAP

gateway, the only way to avail WAP services is by making a

mobile call to a gateway somewhere in Sweden, Germany or

Finland. However, Indian operators are known to be testing out

WAP solutions. It might not be too long for a WAP gateway to be

up and running locally in India.

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What Services

Are Available?

The

services available through a WAP phone–apart from voice calls

and e-mails–include access to:

  • Databases

    like hotel guides, restaurant guides, telephone directory,

    recipes, dictionary

  • n Transaction

    services like ticket reservations, mobile banking, purchase

    of consumer goods like books and music CDs, credit card bill

    enquiry

  • Entertainment

    services like karaoke, FM on-air messages, network games,

    and astrology

  • Other

    services like news, weather forecasts, transportation

    information, tourist information Similar WAP services can

    be provided by WAP service providers in India. From current

    train timings to proactive sports scores to reservation of the

    elusive railway ticket, several valued-added services can be

    provided in the Indian scenario. With many of these already in

    HTML it should not be too hard to translate them into Wireless

    Mark-up Language (WML)–a language the microbrowser in the WAP

    phone can understand. The Indian strength in software can come

    handy here.

    When Will WAP

    Services Be Available?




    The speed of WAP deployment will clearly depend on the
    availability of handset devices supporting WAP. Though quantity

    shipment of Nokia 7110 started from middle of last year, it is

    still not available in many regions such as the Indian

    subcontinent. However, shipments to India are expected next

    month. Also other handset manufacturers like Ericsson, Motorola,

    and Alcatel have showcased yet-to-be launched WAP models

    recently.

    The

    other worry is the cost aspect. Since receiving of WAP services

    requires a larger screen size and more memory to accommodate the

    content, it costs more to produce a WAP handset. Until WAP

    services establish considerable volumes, the initial phones are

    expected to cost high.

    The light of hope comes

    from the development of the network-end products. While problems

    persist in the WAP client (the WAP phone), there is already a

    lot of activity on the network side. A number of WAP gateways–the

    middleware which lifts the information from an Internet server,

    processes it, and sends it to the WAP phone–are already

    available in the market.

    The

    WAP Difference

    While

    developing WAP technology, products, and services, the WAP

    Forum took the paradigm of the Web and the wireless

    communications technologies–which it was trying to marry.

    While it tried to inculcate the rich features of the Web, it

    also had to take into account the limitations of wireless

    communications technologies.

    Bandwidth was

    a major issue. GSM, the cellular telephony standard used in

    India, could transmit data at a speed of only 9.6 Kbps.

    Other popular standards like CDMA and DECT also had similar

    speed limitations. Mobility meant that the mobile device had

    to be small enough to fit into a pocket. This put a

    constraint on the size of the display screen. Also the time

    available to browse and surf when one is on the move is

    limited, thus content has to be minimal, simple, and quickly

    accessible.

    WAP utilizes

    the client server philosophy. A WAP session requires a

    mobile phone with a microbrowser in it and a WAP gateway

    connected to the mobile network. The subscriber with the WAP

    phone first dials into the WAP service. Once online, he uses

    the in-built microbrowser to make a request in Wireless

    Mark-up Language (WML), a variant of HTML, developed bearing

    in mind the various characteristics of wireless

    communication, such as the bandwidth limitations and the

    screen size.

    The request

    goes to a WAP gateway, which retrieves the information from

    an Internet server in HTML or WML format. If it is in HTML

    format, a filter in the gateway translates it into WML. This

    gateway then sends this information to the WAP client using

    existing bearer services such as SMS or CSD.

    Some of them like Nokia,

    Phone.com, and Ericsson are giving away WAP toolkits to

    application developers. WAP gateway developers like Nokia and

    Ericsson have signed up several mobile network operators,

    including some in India, to try WAP services and gain market

    feedback.

    Though companies

    developing WAP services still have a long way to go, the initial

    WAP services like e-mail, information guides, and news headline

    services, can be provided using the first series of

    specifications that come with WAP version 1.1. Other advanced

    services will be enabled with future versions of WAP. In fact,

    some proactive cellular service providers like Radio Linja of

    Sweden and Swisscom of Switzerland have already gone ahead with

    their services using WAP version 1.1. Indian operators like

    AirTel, Essar Cellphone, Fascel, and Hutchison Max are known to

    be testing out WAP services. Essar Cellphone is providing Smart

    SMS by using Nokia’s Artus Messaging platform, which can also

    accommodate WAP services. However, the availability of WAP

    services in India will depend largely on market demand and the

    technical feasibility of WAP vis-a-vis the existing cellular

    technologies that the Indian operators use.

    WAP: The

    Personal Tool




    As and when WAP services start and gain maturity, it will enable
    several interesting activities for a mobile person. The modern

    corporate man today spends a lot of time commuting or simply

    waiting. If one has a personal companion such as a cellphone

    with ready access to information and entertainment, this time

    will be spent in a more worthwhile manner. With WAP, the mobile

    phone will compete with the personal computer at home and office

    to conduct routine activities such as banking, ticketing, online

    shopping, and checking for information such as news, weather

    reports, yellow pages, and train/flight/bus schedules. But, on

    the move, the cellphone is likely to rule the roost.

    All said and done, the

    popularization of WAP services will depend on how affordable it

    can get. It would mean several marketing packages and newer

    tariff models. Initially, WAP will be too costly for the

    majority, at least in countries like India. But those who can

    afford it will most likely find it valuable. WAP: The

    Corporate Tool




    WAP could affect a company in two ways–as a new way of
    delivering services or an enabler of the "anytime,

    anywhere" connected workforce. As said earlier, anybody can

    provide WAP services. Today, companies realize the value of

    their customers’ time. The need to reach out to customers

    anywhere and anytime cuts across industries. In this regard,

    companies can have the ultimate medium in wireless connectivity.

    In the case of a popular movie theatre, WAP services would

    provide value to its customers by enabling them to find out the

    current movies through the mobile phone and book a ticket or

    cancel another one. An airlines company could be hosting a WAP

    server that proactively updates the flight schedules round the

    clock informing consumers of any reschedule or delay.

    WAP services can, on the

    other hand, make the internal process of a company more

    efficient and save on expenses by allowing the workforce to

    connect to its intranet from a cellphone, which is much cheaper

    than a laptop. The corporate applications that can be carried

    out through a WAP phone include order entry, product

    availability tracking, deal management, job dispatch, remote

    monitoring, and corporate e-mail.

    The bottomline is that

    while WAP services could initially burn one’s pocket for quite

    some time on the personal level, to a corporation it could mean

    newer revenue streams.

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