The new generation of the WAP Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) specification together with improved handsets and other wireless devices ensure a much better development environment for advanced mobile services. Based on well-established Internet standards including TCP and HTTP as well as the necessary components specifically adapted for wireless environments, WAP 2.0 will provide a simple, yet powerful tool-kit for easy development and deployment of a multitude of useful and exciting new services.
WAP 2.0 has adopted XHTML Basic as the base for its mark-up language. XHTML, developed by the World-Wide Web Consortium (W3C), is the language that will be used to create all content, regardless of whether it is intended for the fixed Internet or the mobile phone world. By narrowing the gap between wired and wireless content, XHTML greatly accelerates the pace at which services can be created and improves the usability of wireless services for consumers.
Other Internet standards that have been adopted in WAP 2.0 include Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Transport Layer Security (TLS), HTTP and TCP. By specifying how these standards are best used in a wireless environment a better user-experience is achieved. The richer content and multimedia services that will be available in 2.5G/3G networks are going to be based on these and similar standards and will therefore integrate seamlessly with WAP technology.
The release of WAP 2.0 includes the first release of Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS), a service developed jointly together with 3GPP, which allows users to send multimedia messages, combining sounds with images and text, to each other in a fashion similar to sending SMS.
Additionally, WAP 2.0 further evolves WAP Push, which can be used for services such as online auctions, where it is important for users to receive information at the point of interest (i.e., the moment something interesting happens), rather than being forced to actively look for the information.
Due to the fact that WAP 2.0 is an open and interoperable standard, it will be a very valuable component in any future mobile service offering. The companies believe that the GSM Association will also benefit greatly from including WAP 2.0 as one of its cornerstones when defining future versions of its M-services initiative.
According to Lars Boman, head of Ericsson Mobile Internet Applications,
Ericsson is proud to have contributed from start to finish to the new WAP 2.0 standard. The introduction of well-known and established Internet standards, such as XHTML, will ensure compatibility with content available on the Internet. Together with new functionality, such as multimedia messaging, it opens up new possibilities for operators and content developers. Our focus is as always to create user-friendly products that facilitate these new services, he said to the press.
