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Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is an open international standard for applications that use wireless communication, for example Internet access from a mobile phone. WAP was designed to provide services equivalent to a Web browser with some mobile-specific additions, being specifically designed to address the limitations of very small portable devices. However, during its first years of existence WAP suffered from considerable negative media attention and has been criticised heavily for its design choices and limitations.
The primary language of the WAP specification is WML, the Wireless Markup Language, which has been designed from scratch for handheld devices with phone-specific features following the XML guidelines.
The official body developing WAP used to be the WAP Forum. The WAP Forum has consolidated (along with many other forums of the industry) into OMA (Open Mobile Alliance), which covers virtually everything in future development of wireless data services.
The new version of WAP, WAP 2.0, is a re-engineering of WAP using XML. Some observers predict that this next-generation WAP will converge with, and be replaced by, true Web access to pocket devices. Whether this next generation ( Wireless Internet Protocol to mobile) will still be referred to as WAP is yet to be decided. XHTML Basic, a subset of XHTML, is made to work in mobile devices.
WAP Push, available since WAP 1.2, 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. A WAP Push can be delivered over WAP bear or 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.
In this way, the WAP Push directs the end user to a WAP address where particular content may be stored ready for viewing or downloading to the handset. The address could be a simple page or multimedia content (e.g. polyphonic ring tone) or a Java application. Using WAP Push, one can make it easier for end users to discover and access new mobile services.
WAP was intended as a mobile replacement for the World Wide Web. However, its idiosyncratic protocols cut users off from the true HTML / HTTP Web, leaving only native WAP content and Web-to-WAP proxy content available to WAP users. WAP's charging model, where users have to pay by the minute regardless of the amount of data received, has also been criticized.
WAP was hyped at the time of its introduction, leading users to expect WAP to have the performance of the Web. One telco's advertising showed a cartoon WAP user "surfing" through a Neuromancer-like "information space". In terms of speed, ease of use, appearance and interoperability, the reality fell far short of expectations. This led to the unkind, but widely used phrases: "WAP is crap", "Worthless Application Protocol", "Wait And Pay".
The main reasons for the failure of WAP were price and closedness. Even though GPRS made WAP cheap, and cell phone operators opened their gateways to access all of the Internet, WAP did not quite take off.
However, WAP has seen huge success in Japan. While the largest operator NTT DoCoMoNTT DoCoMo Inc. is the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan. The name is officially an abbreviation of the phrase Do Communications Over the Mobile Network but also means “everywhere” in Japanese. DoCoMo was spun off from NTT in August 1991 to take has famously disdained WAP in favor of its in-house system i-modeNTT DoCoMo's i-mode is a wireless internet service for i-mode mobile phones using HTTP, popular in Japan and increasingly also elsewhere. It was inspired by the drawbacks of WAP being discussed at the time, and a rough concept aimed for businessmen introd, rival operators KDDI ( auThe abbreviation Au or AU may refer to: Administrative Unit in SDH Networks chemical symbol for gold Au , from the Latin aurum an audio file format . au ; see au file format ISO 3166-1 code for Australia the country code top-level domain for Australia .) and Vodafone JapanVodafone K. also known as Vodafone Japan is the Japanese branch of mobile phone operator Vodafone. Technology Vodafone Japan currently operates both PDC (Japanese 2G) and W-CDMA ( UMTS 3G) networks. Unlike NTT DoCoMo's competing W-CDMA network FOMA, J-Pho have both been successful with the WAP technology. In particular, J-Phone's Sha-MailSha-Mail is a kind of mailing service of J-Phone (now Vodafone Japan). This term is made from Sha, which is the front part a japanese word Shashin meaning photograph, and Mail. Sha-Mail is for sending picture and/or email through mobile handsets. picture mail and Java ( JSCL ) services, as well as auThe abbreviation Au or AU may refer to: Administrative Unit in SDH Networks chemical symbol for gold Au , from the Latin aurum an audio file format . au ; see au file format ISO 3166-1 code for Australia the country code top-level domain for Australia .'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 20012001 is a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar), and also: The International Year of the Volunteer The United Nations Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations Events January January 1 A black monolith measuring approximately nine feet tall ap.
Korea is also leading the world in providing advanced WAP services. WAP on top of the cdma2000 network has been proven to be the state of the art wireless data infrastructure.
According to the Mobile Data Association, June 2004 has seen a considerable increase of 42% in its recorded number of WAP pages viewed compared with the same period in 2003. This takes the total for the second quarter of 2004 to 4 billion.