Recently I have read a few opinions casting doubt on the value of the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) in today’s converging wireless and Internet industries. I consider these opinions to be under-informed because the authors of these criticisms missed the basic goal and motivations for WAP, as well as the basic strategies carriers are using to deploy WAP. In the following paragraphs, I will attempt to provide a brief summary of the market need that WAP was created to fill, as well as the technological future of WAP integration.
The facts are simple: Today there are 180 million Internet users and 400 million wireless phones users worldwide. WAP is the glue between these fast-growing industries. It has been designed to allow mass-market phones to perform information-access functions by leveraging the technology of the Web.
WAP is not designed for a “surfing” function or general-purpose browsing tool. Instead, it allows wireless phone users to access small but critical amounts of Internet and intranet-based information while they’re “on the go,” while providing wireless phone carriers with an opportunity to add rich functionality to a previously single-function device.
WAP is the defacto industry standard. More than 95 companies have joined the forum and endorsed WAP’s technological premise. These include many of the world’s leading carriers as well as almost all device and wireless infrastructure manufacturers and a strong contingent of software companies. With the wireless market expected to reach 700 million subscribers in the year 2002, according to The Strategis Group, the majority of this growth will be with simple, inexpensive phones.
These phones are empowered by WAP to interact with Internet-based content and e-mail. WAP’s modularity and tight relationship to Internet standards will enable it to grow and evolve based on the market needs and capabilities of future devices and networks. WAP presents a complete value-chain-providing previously single-purpose devices with a rich new function set with no additional cost to the device.
WAP is phone-centric. WAP allows wireless phone manufacturers to retain control over their choice of operating systems, as well as their unique man-machine interface (MMI). A large part of the manufacturers’ perceived value and differentiation is in their ability to project their device’s personality through the MMI. WAP enables the devices to be standardized in their handling of services, while protecting the manufacturers’ ability to differentiate. The phone service market will remain phone-centric. The ergonomics, style, tactile key pad, usability requirements, cost, battery life and associated requirements will mean that there will be hundreds of millions of more telephones sold than PDAs sold for a long time. WAP enables phones to do more.
WAP is Internet-standards based. WAP’s protocol layers are derived from the basic Internet Protocol and are designed to be more efficient and require less device memory, computational capabilities and power consumption. WML, the Wireless Markup Language, is an eXtensible Markup Language (XML), compliant with the most modern Internet standards.
WAP is a vibrant new way for information to be delivered to the masses in creative ways.
WAP will most likely revise its specifications once a year to accommodate and take advantage of improvements in network, CPU, display and memory characteristics of devices. WAP’s capabilities will grow to match the capabilities of the networks and devices and meet the needs of the users.
WAP brings value to the masses. WAP is simply about allowing mass-market-class devices the best possible access to some of the most relevant information out of the vast amounts of information on the Internet. WAP will allow manufacturers and carriers alike to derive more value from the basic phone-a device that will be in the hands of every man, woman and child in the next 10 years.
Chuck Parrish
Executive VP, Phone.com Inc.
(formerly Unwired Planet Inc.)
Chairman, WAP Forum
United States
