CANNES, France and HANNOVER, Germany-Visitors at the ever-expanding GSM World Congress, held in February in Cannes, France, could have mistaken the huge exhibition as focusing exclusively on Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). For the second year running, it appeared almost every exhibitor had a WAP product, strategy or concept that would solve all known problems experienced by cellular operators or mobile phone users.
After the failure to deliver handsets, infrastructure or a stable WAP software platform during the last 12 months, operators have started to express their growing cynicism. Many are no longer accepting the ambitious claims that WAP could be the all-conquering technology, enabling end users to access a plethora of applications and the Internet or conduct daily business via a WAP phone.
Harsh reality
Stuart Newstead, head of commercial development with U.K. cellular operator BT Cellnet, believes the business case for WAP is questionable, even though the company has launched WAP-based services. “Using WAP in today’s GSM dial-up environment is cumbersome. It can take between 20 to 25 seconds from the start of dialing until the first WAP screens appear on the handset,” said Newstead. “The overall transaction can appear tedious, certainly when the requested information is being downloaded to the user.”
However, Newstead is keen to stress that this delay will disappear when BT Cellnet launches General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), planned for June, and the connect time drops from more than 20 seconds to less than two seconds.
“The combination of WAP and GPRS will transform the situation, where the handset is in always-connected mode, information is just a click away and the user will be charged on a per-packet basis rather than [by] connect time,” he said.
Along with almost every other cell-phone manufacturer, Ericsson announced four new WAP phones at CeBIT 2000 in Hannover, Germany. However, Ericsson President Kurt Hellstr”m seemed to question this generation of devices by saying: “WAP needs higher speed, such as GPRS, which will become available later this year.”
In response to when WAP phones would become generally available, he answered, “Where are the phones? You need to ask where is the market. We don’t have the services today for mobile Internet.”
Prior to the jump into new-fangled high-speed data technologies, BT Cellnet’s Newstead recommended that operators start offering data applications using the short message service (SMS) capabilities of their existing network and subscriber handsets, then add services based on SIM Application Toolkit (STK), followed by introducing WAP or WAP plus GPRS. Beyond this point, Newstead believes a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)-based protocol is required to enable a more standard Internet presentation on a mobile device.
A return to SMS
The enthusiasm presently surrounding mobile data, seen by many as the next boom for the cellular industry, or by the operators as its savior, has been built on the explosion of SMS traffic. While current analysis of SMS traffic demonstrates that 90 percent is still accounted for by simple text messages, some European operators are starting to see significant demand for SMS information services.
The market research firm Yankee Group Europe said this surge has been stimulated by the deployment of STK, which greatly enhances information ease of use. More than 20 operators around Europe now support STK. Banking services in particular have become more sophisticated and are no longer confined to basic functionality, such as checking account details and viewing previous transactions. The Yankee Group Europe said more advanced services like bill payment, fund transfers and e-cash reloads are now offered or are being tested.
Yankee also warned operators of the need to proceed with caution when it comes to WAP-based services, stressing that the right marketing, distribution and culture is vital for its success. The firm maintained that, in the short-to-medium-term, STK is being used to deliver many of the same services and functionality as WAP, and STK is cheaper in terms of service cost and handset price. Also, launching both STK- and WAP-based services may confuse customers and perhaps delay purchases.
Voice-recognition threat
Another growing voice of WAP dissension includes the developers of interactive voice recognition (IVR) software.
“WAP is a short-lived phenomenon,” said Rich Minor, a director of Wildfire, a leading architect of IVR software. “It has been designed to overcome the shortcomings of today’s mobile devices because their screens are so small that the images cannot be displayed, and the bandwidth is not there.”
He advocated that voice is a much more natural method to interact with a service compared with the numerous key depressions required on a WAP handset. He points to Phone.com’s recent purchase of IVR developer @Motion as evidence there was a fundamental flaw in its WAP model. Phone.com is a major developer of WAP software.
“It’s still going to be a couple of years before these WAP-based devices have a really usable interface to make extensive data access a viable process. Also, there are significant limits to making a cell-phone screen that is either touch-sensitive or with sufficient graphic power to make the user interface adequate,” added Minor.
Mobile operators have accepted that WAP may provide them with the opportunity to gain additional revenue by offering sophisticated data services. However, the actual importance of WAP compared with other wireless technologies is now being questioned by many former advocates. “WAP might be seen as important today, but [it] will ultimately go away,” summed up Minor.
