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Unit 1: Understanding WAP (Wireless Application Protocol)

1.3 Summary Notes

 Pervasive computing is aimed at providing people easy access to information and to help
us control information quickly, efficiently and effortlessly making lives easier for us.

 Smart devices are embedded with microprocessors that permit users to plug into intelligent
networks and gain direct, simple, and secure access to both corresponding information
and services.
 Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is an application environment and group of
communication protocols for wireless devices modeled to activate manufacturer-vendor
and technology-independent access to the Internet and advanced telephony services.
 WAP provide the ability to present a wide range of mobile value-added services to
subscriber-independent of their network, bearer and terminal. Mobile subscribers can
access the same information from a pocketsize device as they can use with the desktop.

 Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, and Unwired Planet founded the WAP Forum in the summer
of 1997 with the initial purpose of defining an industry-wide specification for developing
applications over wireless communications networks.
 The WAP standard is based on Internet standards (HTML, XML and TCP/IP). It consists of
a WML language specification, a WML Script specification, and a Wireless Telephony
Application Interface (WTAI) specification.
 WAP’s goal is to allow a wide variety of wireless devices and compensate for the restraints
and applications, to utilize as few resources as possible on the handheld device and
compensate for the constraints of the device by enriching the functionality of the network.
 For wireless network operators, WAP promises to decrease churn, cut costs, and increase
the subscriber base both by improving existing services and facilitating an unlimited
range of new value-added services and applications.

 WAP will enable content and application developers to grasp the tag-based WML that will
pave the way for services to be written and deployed within an operator’s network quickly
and easily.

 End users of WAP will benefit from easy, secure access to Internet information and services
through their mobile devices as well as access to Intranet information such as corporate
databases.
 WAP utilizes Internet standards such as XML, UDP, and IP which have been optimized for
the unique constraints of the wireless environment: low bandwidth, high latency, and less
connection stability.
 WML and wireless markup language script (WMLScript) are used to produce WAP content.
They make optimum use of small displays, and navigation may be performed with one
hand.

 The lightweight WAP protocol stack is designed to minimize the required bandwidth and
maximize the number of wireless network types that can deliver WAP content.
 WAP is based on a scalable layered architecture making it possible to introduce new
bearers or to use new transport protocols without major changes in the other layers.
 WAP defines a set of standard components that enable communication between mobile
terminals and network servers which are standard naming model, content typing, standard
content formats, and standard communication protocols.

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