WAP is back

Rumors of WAP’s demise have been greatly exaggerated over the past few years and, some insist, maintained wholly by the media. But WAP 2.0, released this week for public review, might just spark a WAP resurgence and end all of the bashing that has plagued the standard since its inception.

According to the WAP Forum (www.wapforum.org), WAP 2.0 allows application developers to create content using the same tools and techniques they use for other Internet applications. The new architecture continues the convergence of WAP with the Internet, merging the work of the WAP Forum, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) (www.w3c.org) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) (www.ietf.org) and enabling more rapid development of new wireless Internet applications.

“The new specification is a significant milestone toward the WAP Forum’s goal to bring a richer experience to users of mobile phones and other wireless devices,” said Scott Goldman, WAP Forum CEO. “WAP 2.0 provides all companies in the wireless value chain with a bridge to the mobile Internet’s true potential.”

WAP 2.0 consists of a mark-up language migration from HTML/Wireless Mark-up Language (WML) to eXtensible Hyper Text Mark-up Language (XHTML), which combines the WAP and fixed-Internet worlds and allows developers to build applications one time for rendering on multiple devices.

It’s designed to increase the usability of WAP applications, meet market demands and take advantage of higher bandwidths, faster data speeds, greater processing power and varied screen sizes. The addition of XHTML in WAP 2.0 enables carriers to deploy new services in multiple channels (WAP, Web, PDA). The spec also includes higher degrees of security, including additional features to assure highly secure transactions, including Transport Layer Security (TLS) and PKI support, Goldman said.

WAP 2.0 will help create a richer user experience, too, by including technologies such as Data Synchronization (SyncML protocol), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), Persistent Storage Interface, provisioning and pictograms. In addition, Wireless Telephony Application (WTA), WAP Push and User Agent Profile (UAPROF) use more advanced features in WAP 2.0 than in previous versions.

WAP 2.0 embraces the HTTP and TCP Internet protocols and adds compelling features for developers and users, including an advanced-user interface and support for pop-up menus, color, graphics, animation, multimedia messaging services and large-file downloading. Consumer and business WAP applications include graphic applications for wireless-chat products, a performance-management tool that predicts scalability and mapping applications. Bluetooth-enabled products and WAP-enabled remote-control devices for information residing on PCs are other applications.

The evolved spec also allows developers to create applications using enhanced style features. With Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), they can separate style attributes for one or more XML documents from the actual code, reducing the size of the mark-up code in browser memory.

The richer content and multimedia services said to arrive with 2.5G and 3G networks will be based on these and similar standards and so will integrate seamlessly with WAP technology.

Just like a new baby, WAP 2.0 is receiving the initial, if insincere, “ooh, it’s so cute” compliments all around.

Ericsson (www.ericsson.com), Motorola (www.motorola.com) and Nokia (www.nokia.com) have announced their support of the newest version of the new standard.

The companies, which co-founded the WAP Forum with Unwired Planet, now Openwave (www.openwave.com), also said they intend to develop products, content and services based on WAP 2.0.

NTT DoCoMo (www.nttdocomo.com), which originally proposed the WAP Next Generation (WAP-NG) initiative with Ericsson, already has adopted some WAP 2.0-equivalent specifications for its i-mode and introductory FOMA (3G wireless) services. A DoCoMo spokesperson said the Japanese carrier is working to make its i-mode/FOMA service compatible with WAP 2.0 as soon as possible.

The GSM Association (www.gsmworld.com) also welcomed WAP 2.0 and applauded the move toward an XHTML-based mark-up language. Media and analysts have whispered that the association’s M-Services initiative was designed as an alternative to WAP. But Rob Conway, GSM Association CEO, said the recently announced initiative is a “parallel development” that complements and supports the WAP 2.0 standard.

Many view the open, interoperable WAP 2.0 standard as a significant evolutionary step toward the introduction of advanced wireless Internet services.

“The evolution of WML 2.0, WAP’s markup language, to an XHTML architecture incorporating CSS allows the developer community to easily deliver applications that will capitalize on a broad set of supported features that will enhance the user experience,” said Becky Diercks, Cahners In-Stat Group director of wireless research (www.instat.com). “Cahners In-Stat Group expects the number of wireless Internet subscribers to grow from 30 million in 2000 to 742 million by the end of 2005. WAP 2.0 will help fuel this growth through next-generation applications and devices.”

The evolution of WAP ensures a much-improved development environment for advanced wireless services, but the industry shouldn’t get its hopes up too high yet.

WAP 2.0, like WAP 1.0, still is limited by today’s handsets. And a specification in all its glory means nothing without applications. So, the WAP Forum has done its job. The onus is now on developers and carriers to deliver the “A” in WAP.