Will WAP Deliver the Wireless Internet?

W ith users increasingly adopting Internet-enabled cellular phones and other hand-held devices, vendors are looking for platform-independent wireless technologies to help these devices effectively access Internet content and services, and communicate with each other. Providing this access is particularly challenging for handheld devices because of their small screens, low memory and power, and differing platform technologies. It is also challenging for wireless networks because of their low bandwidth and high latencies. These limitations keep some older Internet protocols, such as HTML, from working efficiently and effectively for mobile Internet-based communications. Now, however, proponents and many industry observers are touting WAP (the Wireless Application Protocol) as the technology that will become the standardized basis and future of the mobile Internet. Before WAP, mobile users could access the Web via such technologies as the UP Browser, by Unwired Planet (now Phone. com), which ran only on AT&T Pocket-Net CDPD (cellular digital packet data) phones. WAP, on the other hand, is designed to address small devices' technical limitations and work with a variety of wireless platforms. WAP offers a scalable, exten-sible protocol stack that handles security, the establishment of sessions, and other aspects of mobile communications. The WAP Forum (http://www. wapforum.org)—a consortium of hardware , software, and other wireless-industry vendors—claims that 95 percent of the world's handset manufacturers are committed to rolling out WAP-enabled devices over the next 12 to 24 months. Vendors have already developed a number of WAP-based applications and devices. However, some observers say the number of devices is small relative to the protocol's hype, and they jokingly say WAP stands for " where are the phones? " Meanwhile, widespread WAP adoption faces numerous obstacles, such as competing technologies. For example, NTT DoCoMo's iMode technology has more than 3.7 million users in Japan. And WAP may face even stiffer competition from other sources, said Andrew Seybold, senior partner at the Andrew Seybold Group, a wireless and mobile computing consultancy. For example, he said, " Microsoft is close to releasing a browser that will support both WAP and XML, to provide an easy transition from one standard to another. " Others question WAP's long-term usefulness , such as whether it will be scalable, will offer appealing content, or will be made obsolete by other technologies. However, said WAP Forum CEO Scott Goldman, both WAP and the handheld devices themselves will improve and address these concerns. Meanwhile, he added, the protocol has …