GENEVA-As any one of the tens of thousands of visitors who thronged the halls of February’s GSM World Congress knows, the latest word in GSM services is Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). If the sheer quantity of recent WAP-related announcements is anything to go by, WAP is set to transform the voice-dominated world of Global System for Mobile communications services into a wonderland of user-friendly data-based information services.
The WAP protocol essentially allows mobile phones and wireless devices to securely tap into and instantly interact with the Internet and other online services.
For users, this means access to a huge range of new information and advanced communication services, such as train and traffic information, weather forecasts, news and sporting results and online messaging-all displayed on the liquid crystal display screen of a WAP-optimized GSM handset.
For network operators, WAP means the ability to create new revenue streams for non-voice services, as well as new avenues for service differentiation that can stimulate airtime use and provide a winning edge in increasingly competitive markets.
The brainchild of the WAP Forum, founded in 1997 by Nokia Corp., L.M. Ericsson and Motorola Inc. in conjunction with Phone.com (formerly Unwired Planet), WAP is gaining fans fast. With more than 90 companies lending their support to the protocol, Forum members now account for more than 90 percent of the global handset market and include telcos with a combined subscriber base of more than 100 million customers.
SFR’s commercial launch
Cegetel SFR, France’s second-ranked mobile operator, is one of the first operators in Europe to launch WAP-based service. The company began trials of the technology last October, providing 400 carefully selected subscribers with access to WAP-compliant Alcatel One Touch Pocket phones and a range of useful information, such as news and weather, entertainment guides and even real-time maps showing traffic conditions on Paris’ notoriously congested peripherique and inner city area.
The success of the trial convinced the company to launch its E.medi@ WAP-based service at the end of March.
“E.medi@ is a WAP-based pay-per-view service based on an early version of the protocol, which is very easy to use, very intuitive,” said Christophe Francois, director of marketing and strategy at Cegetel SFR and member of the WAP board. With customers already flocking to the new service, Francois confidently predicts 100,000 subscribers by the end of 1999.
France Telcom in trial stage
Not to be outdone, France Telecom also is planning to launch its own WAP service sometime in the middle of the year, with trials under way that will extend existing products like the company’s SMS-based Mini-News to a WAP platform.
Yet to be christened, the new France Telecom WAP service will run on Nokia’s brand-new WAP-oriented 7110 handset, which, like its counterpart from Alcatel, features an extra-large LCD screen to facilitate the display of graphical information.
Arnaud Jagoda, products and services marketing director at France Telecom, said the company has spent the last two years working with content providers to develop online information services specifically targeted at the cellular market.
“We already have considerable experience selling data-based information services like Mini-News to our cellular customers, so we have a very good idea of what works and what doesn’t,” said Jagoda. “Because we’ve learned what customers want from online, mobile information services, we’re very confident of the popularity of our WAP offering with customers.”
Jagoda said about 5 million of France Telecom’s 6 million subscribers already use the operator’s SMS service, and should find it easy to make the move to WAP.
SFR’s Christophe Francois added that the popularity of Minitel, the uniquely French data terminal that continues to provide more than 14 million fixed-line phone users with text-based online purchasing and access to information like train and airline schedules, means French consumers already are comfortable with the idea of sourcing all kinds of information online.
“The French consumer’s high acceptance of online information services like Minitel has the potential to make the market for WAP-based services one of Europe’s biggest and most dynamic,” said Francois.
Unlike most European operators, Cegetel SFR chose to take the plunge early, going to market with a product initially based on Phone.com’s prototype HTML specification, with plans to upgrade to WAP 1.1 as soon as it becomes commercially available. Designed to give carriers and operators a chance to develop services and run trials of the technology, the current WAP 1.0 is really a preliminary standard.
