Page 141 - DCAP512_WAP_AND_WML

Unit 10: Email Integration

WAP content and applications are specified in a set of well-known content formats based on the Notes
familiar WWW content formats. Content is transported using a set of standard communication
protocols based on the WWW communication protocols.

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Caution A micro browser in the wireless terminal co-ordinates the users interface and are
analogous to a standard web browser.

10.1 Email and WAP

10.1.1 WAP Development Issues

Following are several issues that are related to WAP development which are not standardized
yet and the WAP developers should be aware of.

 Push Not Supported: The WAP Wireless Session Layer (WSP) specification defines the
WSP push operation and a WSP push PDU (Protocol Data Unit). A push operation is not
specified for the HTTP protocol, used by the WAP Gateway server to communicate with
content hosts. To support pushes, the server has to provide an application interface to
allow server based applications to generate a push to a mobile client. The support of
pushes on the client side depends on the capabilities of the handsets to handle pushed
content. The Nokia over-the-air (OTA) configuration proposal to the WAP Forum describes
the use of a connectionless push over the SMS bearer, to transfer the configuration data to
the handset.
 Lack of Cookies for Session Management: There are no “cookies” for session management,
i.e. to hold the session together. Cookies are used on the fixed Internet to identify the web
browser and thereby assist in providing customized and streamlined services. Instead,
some WAP applications use indexes in the URL as an alternative. The cookie information
is transmitted via HTTP headers. Because WAP Wireless Session Layer (WSP) is based on
HTTP headers, it should be possible to transmit cookie information to the clients. The
problem may be the clients themselves, which may currently not support the handling of
cookie HTTP header information or the ability to save this information to a persistent
storage in the mobile phone. Some third parties have now announced support for cookies.
 Fear of Viruses being transmitted via WAP: The mobile phone will follow a similar
development path to PCs- with good ideas like screensavers and bad ideas like computer
viruses appearing on mobile phones such as they do on PCs today.

Task Analyze how solutions are being developed by various private companies?
 Premature Encryption Endpoint: The Wireless Transport Layer Security (WSLS) defines
encryption between the Mobile Station and the WAP Gateway. The “endpoint” of the
encrypted WTLS data is the WAP Gateway proxy server. To have a secure connection to a
content host (e.g. banking server) the Gateway proxy server has to establish secure (https)
connections to this hosts. In this case the proxy server has access to the decrypted data
received via WTLS from the mobile station or from the content host via https.
 Small Downloadable Unit Size: WAP incorporates no compression techniques for the
textual content, although the WML markup commands are compressed. Additionally, the
“deck”- the smallest unit of downloadable information in Wireless Markup Language- is

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