Wireless Application Protocol

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Not to be confused with WPA or Wi-Fi Protected Access.
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is an open international standard[1] for application-layer
network communications in a wireless-communication environment. Most use of WAP involves
accessing the mobile web from a mobile phone or from a PDA.
A WAP browser provides all of the basic services of a computer-based web browser but
simplified to operate within the restrictions of a mobile phone, such as its smaller view screen.
Users can connect to WAP sites: websites written in, or dynamically converted to, WML
(Wireless Markup Language) and accessed via the WAP browser.
Before the introduction of WAP, service providers had extremely limited opportunities to offer
interactive data services, but needed interactivity to support now-commonplace activities such
as:
• Email by mobile phone
• Tracking of stock-market prices
• Sports results
• News headlines
• Music downloads
The Japanese i-mode system offers another major competing wireless data protocol.

Contents
[hide]
• 1 Technical specifications
○ 1.1 Wireless Application Environment (WAE)
• 2 History
○ 2.1 WAP 1.X
○ 2.2 WAP Push
○ 2.3 WAP 2.0
• 3 Commercial status
○ 3.1 Europe
○ 3.2 Asia
 ○ 3.3 USA
○ 3.4 Spin-off technologies
• 4 Criticism
• 5 Protocol design lessons from WAP
• 6 See also
• 7 References
• 8 External links

[edit] Technical specifications

OSI Model
7 Application Layer
6 Presentation Layer
5 Session Layer
4 Transport Layer
3 Network Layer
Data Link Layer
2 • LLC sublayer
• MAC sublayer
1 Physical Layer
• The WAP standard[2] describes a protocol suite that allows the interoperability of WAP
equipment and software with many different network technologies, thus allowing the
building of a single platform for competing network technologies such as GSM and IS-95
(also known as CDMA) networks.
+------------------------------------------+
| Wireless Application Environment (WAE) |
+------------------------------------------+ \
| Wireless Session Protocol (WSP) | |
+------------------------------------------+ |
| Wireless Transaction Protocol (WTP) | | WAP
+------------------------------------------+ | protocol
| Wireless Transport Layer Security (WTLS) | | suite
+------------------------------------------+ |
| Wireless Datagram Protocol (WDP) | |
+------------------------------------------+ /
| *** Any Wireless Data Network *** |
+------------------------------------------+
• The bottom-most protocol in the suite, the WAP Datagram Protocol (WDP), functions as
an adaptation layer that makes every data network look a bit like UDP to the upper layers
by providing unreliable transport of data with two 16-bit port numbers (origin and
destination). All the upper layers view WDP as one and the same protocol, which has
several "technical realizations" on top of other "data bearers" such as SMS, USSD, etc.
On native IP bearers such as GPRS, UMTS packet-radio service, or PPP on top of a
circuit-switched data connection, WDP is in fact exactly UDP.
 • WTLS, an optional layer, provides a public-key cryptography-based security mechanism
similar to TLS.
• WTP provides transaction support (reliable request/response) adapted to the wireless
world. WTP supports more effectively than TCP the problem of packet loss, which
occurs commonly in 2G wireless technologies in most radio conditions, but is
misinterpreted by TCP as network congestion.
• Finally, one can think of WSP initially as a compressed version of HTTP.
This protocol suite allows a terminal to transmit requests that have an HTTP or HTTPS
equivalent to a WAP gateway; the gateway translates requests into plain HTTP.
[edit] Wireless Application Environment (WAE)
The WAE space defines application-specific markup languages.
For WAP version 1.X, the primary language of the WAE is WML, which has been designed[by
whom?]
from scratch for hand-held devices with phone-specific features. In WAP 2.0, the primary
markup language is XHTML Mobile Profile.
[edit] History
The WAP Forum dates from 1997. It aimed primarily to bring together the various wireless
technologies in a standardised protocol.[3]
In 2002 the WAP Forum was consolidated[by whom?] (along with many other forums of the industry)
into OMA (Open Mobile Alliance)[4], which covers virtually everything in future
development[citation needed] of wireless data services.
[edit] WAP 1.X
The WAP 1.0 standard, released in April 1998, described a complete software stack for mobile
internet access.[5].
WAP version 1.1 came out in 1999.[6]. WAP 1.2, the final update of the 1.X series was released
in June 2000.[7]. The most important addition in version 1.2 was WAP push.[8]
[edit] WAP Push

WAP Push Process

WAP Push has been incorporated into the specification to allow WAP content to be pushed to
the mobile handset with minimum user intervention. A WAP Push is basically a specially
encoded message which includes a link to a WAP address.[9]
WAP Push is specified on top of WDP; as such, it can be delivered over any WDP-supported
bearer, such as GPRS or SMS.[10] Most GSM networks have a wide range of modified
processors, but GPRS activation from the network is not generally supported, so WAP Push
messages have to be delivered on top of the SMS bearer.
On receiving a WAP Push, a WAP 1.2 or later enabled handset will automatically give the user
the option to access the WAP content. This is also known as WAP Push SI (Service Indication).
[10]

The network entity that processes WAP Pushes and delivers them over an IP or SMS Bearer is
known as a Push Proxy Gateway (PPG).[10]
[edit] WAP 2.0
WAP 2.0[2], released in 2002, a re-engineered WAP, uses a cut-down version of XHTML with
end-to-end HTTP (i.e., dropping the gateway and custom protocol suite used to communicate
with it). A WAP gateway can be used in conjunction with WAP 2.0; however, in this scenario, it
is used as a standard proxy server. The WAP gateway's role would then shift from one of
translation to adding additional information to each request. This would be configured by the
operator and could include telephone numbers, location, billing information, and handset
information.
Mobile devices process XHTML Mobile Profile (XHTML MP), the markup language defined in
WAP 2.0. It is a subset of XHTML and a superset of XHTML Basic. A version of cascading
style sheets (CSS) called WAP CSS is supported by XHTML MP.
[edit] Commercial status
[edit] Europe
Marketers hyped WAP at the time of its introduction[11], leading users to expect WAP to have the
performance of the Web. BT Cellnet, one of the UK telcos, ran an advertising campaign
depicting a cartoon WAP user surfing through a Neuromancer-like "information space".[12] In
terms of speed, ease of use, appearance and interoperability, the reality fell far short of
expectations when the first handsets became available in 1999[13][14]. This led to the wide usage of
sardonic phrases such as "Worthless Application Protocol"[15], "Wait And Pay"[16] and so on.
Critics advanced several explanations for the early failure of WAP, possibly[original research?] not
realizing that it was a United Kingdom product which had to comply with the laws of European
nations. An example is the requirement to utilize an ITU message-type that is specific to the
French language with appropriate character conversions being deployed by the WAP message
transmit-and-receive software.
Between 2003 and 2004 WAP made a stronger resurgence with the introduction of Wireless
services (such as Vodafone Live!, T-Mobile T-Zones and other easily-accessible services).
Operator revenues were generated by transfer of GPRS and UMTS data, which is a different
business model than the traditional Web sites and ISPs use. According to the Mobile Data
Association, the WAP traffic in the UK doubled from 2003 to 2004.[17]
[edit] Asia
Unlike in Europe, WAP has seen huge success in Japan. While the largest operator NTT
DoCoMo has famously disdained WAP in favor of its in-house system i-mode, rival operators
KDDI (au) and SoftBank Mobile (previously Vodafone Japan) have both successfully deployed
WAP technology. In particular, J-Phone's Sha-Mail picture mail and Java (JSCL) services, as
well as (au)'s chakuuta/chakumovie (ringtone song/ringtone movie) services are based on WAP.
After being shadowed by the initial success of i-mode, the two smaller Japanese operators have
been gaining market share from DoCoMo since Spring 2001.[18]
Korea also provides advanced WAP services. WAP on top of the CDMA2000 network has been
proven[by whom?] to be the state-of-the art wireless data infrastructure.
[edit] USA
The adoption of WAP in the US has suffered because many cell phone providers require separate
activation and additional fees for data support, and also because telecommunications companies
have sought to limit data access to only approved data providers operating under license of the
signal carrier.
In recognition of the problem, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued an
order on July 31, 2007 which mandates that licensees of the 22-megahertz wide "Upper 700
MHz C Block" spectrum will have to implement a wireless platform which allows customers,
device manufacturers, third-party application developers, and others to use any device or
application of their choice when operating on this particular licensed network band.[19]
[edit] Spin-off technologies
Spin-off technologies, such as MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) (picture-messaging), a
combination of WAP and SMS, have further driven the protocol. An enhanced appreciation of
device diversity, supported by the concomitant changes to WAP content to become more device-
specific rather aiming at a lowest common denominator, has allowed for more usable and
compelling content. As a result, the adoption rate of WAP technology is on the upswing.[citation
needed]

[edit] Criticism
Commentators have criticized several aspects of WML and WAP. Technical criticisms include:
• The idiosyncratic WML language: WML cut users off from the conventional HTML
Web, leaving only native WAP content and Web-to-WAP proxi-content available to
WAP users. However, others argue that technology at that stage would simply not have
been able to give access to anything but custom-designed content which was the sole
purpose of WAP and its simple, reduced complexity interface as the citizens of many
nations are not connected to the web at the present time and have to use government
funded and controlled portals to WAP and similar non-complex services.
• Under-specification of terminal requirements: The early WAP standards included many
optional features and under-specified requirements, which meant that compliant devices
would not necessarily interoperate properly. This resulted in great variability in the actual
behavior of phones, principally because WAP-service implementers and mobile-phone
manufacturers did not[citation needed] obtain a copy of the standards or the correct hardware
and the standard software modules. As an example, some phone models would not accept
a page more than 1 Kb in size; others would downright crash. The user interface of
devices was also underspecified: as an example, accesskeys (e.g., the ability to press '4' to
access directly the fourth link in a list) were variously implemented depending on phone
 models (sometimes with the accesskey number automatically displayed by the browser
next to the link, sometimes without it, and sometimes accesskeys were not implemented
at all).
• Constrained user interface capabilities: Terminals with small black-and-white screens and
few buttons, like the early WAP terminals, face difficulties in presenting a lot of
information to their user, which compounded the other problems: one would have had to
be extra careful in designing the user interface on such a resource-constrained device
which was the real concept of WAP.
• Lack of good authoring tools: The problems above might have succumbed in the face of a
WML authoring tool that would have allowed content providers to easily publish content
that would interoperate flawlessly with many models, adapting the pages presented to the
User-Agent type. However, the development kits which existed did not provide such a
general capability. Developing for the web was easy: with a text editor and a web
browser, anybody could get started, thanks also to the forgiving nature of most desktop
browser rendering engines. By contrast, the stringent requirements of the WML
specifications, the variability in terminals, and the demands of testing on various wireless
terminals, along with the lack of widely available desktop authoring and emulation tools,
considerably lengthened the time required to complete most projects. As of 2009[update],
however, with many mobile devices supporting xHTML, and programs such as Adobe
Go Live and Dreamweaver offering improved web-authoring tools, it is becoming easier
to create content, accessible by many new devices.
• Lack of user agent profiling tools: It quickly became nearly impossible for web hosts to
determine if a request came from a mobile device, or from a larger more capable device.
No useful profiling or database of device capabilities were built into the specifications in
the unauthorized non-compliant products.
Other criticisms address the wireless carriers' particular implementations of WAP:
• Neglect of content providers: Some wireless carriers had assumed a "build it and they
will come" strategy, meaning that they would just provide the transport of data as well as
the terminals, and then wait for content providers to publish their services on the Internet
and make their investment in WAP useful. However, content providers received little
help or incentive to go through the complicated route of development. Others, notably in
Japan (cf. below), had a more thorough dialogue with their content-provider community,
which was then replicated in modern, more successful WAP services such as i-mode in
Japan or the Gallery service in France.
• Lack of openness: Many wireless carriers sold their WAP services as "open", in that they
allowed users to reach any service expressed in WML and published on the Internet.
However, they also made sure that the first page that clients accessed was their own
"wireless portal", which they controlled very closely. Some carriers also turned off
editing or accessing the address bar in the device's browser. To facilitate users wanting to
go off deck, an address bar on a form on a page linked off the hard coded home page
page was provided. It makes it easier for carriers to implement filtering of off deck WML
sites by URLs or to disable the address bar in the future if the carrier decides to switch all
users to a walled garden model. Given the difficulty in typing up fully qualified URLs on
a phone keyboard, most users would give up going "off portal" or out of the walled
garden; by not letting third parties put their own entries on the operators' wireless portal,
some[who?] contend that operators cut themselves off from a valuable opportunity. On the
 other hand, some operators[which?] argue that their customers would have wanted them to
manage the experience and, on such a constrained device, avoid giving access to too
many services.
[edit] Protocol design lessons from WAP
The original WAP model provided a simple platform for access to web-like WML services and
e-mail using mobile phones in Europe and the SE Asian regions. As of 2009[update] it continues
with a considerable user base. The later versions of WAP, primarily targeting the United States
market, were designed[by whom?] for a different requirement - to enable full web XHTML access
using mobile devices with a higher specification and cost, and with a higher degree of software
complexity.
Considerable discussion has addressed the question whether the WAP protocol design was
appropriate. Some have suggested that the bandwidth-sparing simple interface of Gopher would
be a better match for mobile phones and Personal digital assistants (PDAs).[20]
The initial design of WAP specifically aimed at protocol independence across a range of
different protocols (SMS, IP over PPP over a circuit switched bearer, IP over GPRS, etc). This
has led to a protocol considerably more complex than an approach directly over IP might have
caused.
Most controversial, especially for many from the IP side, was the design of WAP over IP. WAP's
transmission layer protocol, WTP, uses its own retransmission mechanisms over UDP to attempt
to solve the problem of the inadequacy of TCP over high-packet-loss networks.
[edit] See also
• .mobi
• i-mode
• Microbrowser
• Wireless transaction protocol
• Wikipedia access via WAP
• Mobile development
• Mobile web
• WAP Identity Module
• WURFL
• Wireless Internet Protocol
• List of computer standards
[edit] References
1. ^ OMA: The WAP 2.0 conformance release
2. ^ a b OMA: The WAP 2.0 conformance release
3. ^ The HCI blog: A brief History of WAP
4. ^ OMA: Frequently Asked Questions
5. ^ WAP Forum: WAP 1.0 Specification Suite
 6. ^ WAP Forum: WAP 1.1 Specification Suite
7. ^ WAP Forum: WAP 1.2.1 conformance release
8. ^ The Wireless FAQ: What is the difference between WAP 1.1 and WAP 1.2?
9. ^ MX Telecom: WAP Push
10. ^ a b c Openwave: WAP Push Technology Overview
11. ^ Will Wap´s call go unanswered? vnunet.com, 2 June 2000
12. ^ Silicon.com: BT Cellnet rapped over 'misleading' WAP ads Published 3 November
2000, retrieved 17 September 2008
13. ^ http://press.nokia.com/PR/199902/777256_5.html Nokia 7110 Press Release
14. ^ http://www.filibeto.org/mobile/firmware.html Nokia 7110 first public firmware
revision date
15. ^ The Globe and Mail: "Survivor's guide to wireless wonkery", 23 September 2005
16. ^ IT Web: "A RIVR runs through it", 14 November 2000
17. ^ Builder.au 2004/08/10: UK WAP usage doubles in 12 months
18. ^ IMCR: NTT DoCoMo Inc.: Leadership Position in Japanese Mobile Market under
Threat? Retrieved 17 September 2008
19. ^ U.S. Federal Communications Commission."FCC Revises 700 MHz Rules To Advance
Interoperable Public Safety Communications And Promote Wireless Broadband
Deployment", July 31, 2007. Accessed October 8, 2007.
20. ^ Wired News: Gopher: Underground Technology

[edit] External links

• Open Mobile Alliance