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Introduction

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is an enabling technology based on the Internet client server architecture model, for transmission and presentation of information from the World Wide Web (WWW) and other applications utilizing the Internet Protocol (IP) to a mobile phone or other wireless terminal.

Research

Wholesale Mobile Report

Secrets of MVNO Success

Mobile in Minute papers

Formation of WAP

Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, and Phone.com founded the WAP Forum in June 1997 to create license-free standards for the entire industry to use to develop products based on WAP.

WAP Protocol Stack

From top to bottom, the WAP protocol stack consists of the following:

• Application layer
• Session layer
• Transaction layer
• Security layer
• Transport layer
• Network layer

Deployment and Operation of WAP

Unlike iMode, WAP requires a gateway to convert between WAP's native language, Wireless Markup Language (WML), and HTML for operation between mobile networks and the WWW.

WAP can be deployed using circuit switch or packet switch bearer facilities such as GPRS. The advantages of packet based WAP include faster speed and always-on capabilities.

WAP and Roaming

When initiating a WAP session while roaming, a connection is made between the visited network and the WAP gateway in the home network. While this provides for basic WAP services to the roamer as if he was in the home network, mobile IN technologies such as CAMEL are required to truly provide a virtual home environment.

WAP and Prepay

While WAP can be provided on a prepay basis with certain prepay techniques such as hot-billing, prepay WAP will benefit significantly better from the implementation of CAMEL phase 3 in conjunction with GPRS as a bearer.

Evolution of WAP

While early implementations of WAP have been relatively unimpressive from a user experience, WAP is poised to leverage packet data networks, push based services, color and animation on the handset, and value-added services such as location based services.

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Books about: WAP