Wireless Application Protocol
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Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is a
technical standard A technical standard is an established norm or requirement for a repeatable technical task which is applied to a common and repeated use of rules, conditions, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes and production methods, ...
for accessing information over a mobile
wireless network A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and business installations avoid the costly process of introducing c ...
. A WAP browser is a
web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...
for
mobile device A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical ...
s such as
mobile phones A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
that use the protocol. Introduced in 1999, WAP achieved some popularity in the early 2000s, but by the 2010s it had been largely superseded by more modern standards. Almost all modern handset internet browsers now fully support
HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...
, so they do not need to use WAP markup for web page compatibility, and therefore, most are no longer able to render and display pages written in WML, WAP's markup language. Before the introduction of WAP, mobile service providers had limited opportunities to offer interactive data services, but needed interactivity to support
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
and Web applications such as email, stock prices, news and sports headlines. The Japanese
i-mode NTT DoCoMo's i-mode is a mobile internet (distinct from wireless internet) service popular in Japan. Unlike Wireless Application Protocols, i-mode encompasses a wider variety of internet standards, including web access, e-mail, and the packet- ...
system offered another major competing wireless data protocol.


Technical specifications


WAP stack

The WAP standard described a
protocol suite The protocol stack or network stack is an implementation of a computer networking protocol suite or protocol family. Some of these terms are used interchangeably but strictly speaking, the ''suite'' is the definition of the communication protoc ...
or stack allowing the interoperability of WAP equipment and software with different network technologies, such as
GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...
and
IS-95 Interim Standard 95 (IS-95) was the first ever CDMA-based digital cellular technology. It was developed by Qualcomm and later adopted as a standard by the Telecommunications Industry Association in TIA/EIA/IS-95 release published in 1995. The ...
(also known as
CDMA Code-division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. CDMA is an example of multiple access, where several transmitters can send information simultaneously over a single communicatio ...
). The bottom-most protocol in the suite, the Wireless Datagram Protocol (WDP), functions as an adaptation layer that makes every data network look a bit like UDP to the upper layers by providing unreliable transport of data with two 16-bit port numbers (origin and destination). All the upper layers view WDP as one and the same protocol, which has several "technical realizations" on top of other "data bearers" such as
SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...
,
USSD Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), sometimes referred to as "quick codes" or "feature codes", is a communications protocol used by GSM cellular telephones to communicate with the mobile network operator's computers. USSD can be used ...
, etc. On native IP bearers such as GPRS,
UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the Inte ...
packet-radio service, or PPP on top of a circuit-switched data connection, WDP is in fact exactly UDP. WTLS, an optional layer, provides a
public-key cryptography Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is the field of cryptographic systems that use pairs of related keys. Each key pair consists of a public key and a corresponding private key. Key pairs are generated with cryptographic alg ...
-based security mechanism similar to TLS. WTP provides transaction support (reliable request/response) adapted to the wireless world. WTP supports more effectively than TCP the problem of packet loss, which occurs commonly in 2G wireless technologies in most radio conditions, but is misinterpreted by TCP as network congestion. This protocol suite allows a terminal to transmit requests that have an
HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...
or
HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It is used for secure communication over a computer network, and is widely used on the Internet. In HTTPS, the communication protocol is enc ...
equivalent to a
WAP gateway A WAP gateway sits between mobile devices using the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and the World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be ...
; the gateway translates requests into plain HTTP. The Wireless Application Environment (WAE) space defines application-specific markup languages. For WAP version 1.X, the primary language of the WAE is
Wireless Markup Language Wireless Markup Language (WML), based on XML, is a now-obsolete markup language intended for devices that implement the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) specification, such as mobile phones. It provides navigational support, data input, hyp ...
(WML). In WAP 2.0, the primary markup language is
XHTML Mobile Profile XHTML Mobile Profile (XHTML MP) is a hypertextual computer language standard designed specifically for mobile phones and other resource-constrained devices. It is an XHTML document type defined by the Open Mobile Alliance. XHTML-MP is derived fr ...
.


WAP Push

WAP Push was incorporated into the specification to allow the WAP content to be pushed to the mobile handset with minimal user intervention. A WAP Push is basically a specially encoded message which includes a link to a WAP address. WAP Push was specified on top of Wireless Datagram Protocol (WDP); as such, it can be delivered over any WDP-supported bearer, such as GPRS or SMS.Openwave: WAP Push Technology Overview
Most GSM networks have a wide range of modified processors, but GPRS activation from the network is not generally supported, so WAP Push messages have to be delivered on top of the SMS bearer. On receiving a WAP Push, a WAP 1.2 (or later) -enabled handset will automatically give the user the option to access the WAP content. This is also known as WAP Push SI (
Service Indication A Push Proxy Gateway is a component of WAP Gateways that pushes URL notifications to mobile handsets. Notifications typically include MMS, email, IM, ringtone downloads, and new device firmware notifications. Most notifications will have an audi ...
). A variant, known as WAP Push SL (
Service Loading A Push Proxy Gateway is a component of WAP Gateways that pushes URL notifications to mobile handsets. Notifications typically include MMS, email, IM, ringtone downloads, and new device firmware notifications. Most notifications will have an audi ...
), directly opens the browser to display the WAP content, without user interaction. Since this behaviour raises security concerns, some handsets handle WAP Push SL messages in the same way as SI, by providing user interaction. The network entity that processes WAP Pushes and delivers them over an IP or SMS Bearer is known as a
Push Proxy Gateway A Push Proxy Gateway is a component of WAP Gateways that pushes URL notifications to mobile handsets. Notifications typically include MMS, email, IM, ringtone downloads, and new device firmware notifications. Most notifications will have an audi ...
(PPG).


WAP 2.0

A re-engineered 2.0 version was released in 2002. It uses a cut-down version of
XHTML Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages. It mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated. While HTML, prior ...
with end-to-end
HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...
, dropping the gateway and custom protocol suite used to communicate with it. A WAP gateway can be used in conjunction with WAP 2.0; however, in this scenario, it is used as a standard proxy server. The WAP gateway's role would then shift from one of translation to adding additional information to each request. This would be configured by the operator and could include telephone numbers, location, billing information, and handset information. Mobile devices process
XHTML Mobile Profile XHTML Mobile Profile (XHTML MP) is a hypertextual computer language standard designed specifically for mobile phones and other resource-constrained devices. It is an XHTML document type defined by the Open Mobile Alliance. XHTML-MP is derived fr ...
(XHTML MP), the markup language defined in WAP 2.0. It is a subset of
XHTML Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages. It mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated. While HTML, prior ...
and a superset of
XHTML Basic XHTML Basic is an XML-based structured markup language primarily used for simple (mainly ''handheld'') user agents, typically mobile devices. XHTML Basic is a subset of XHTML 1.1, defined using XHTML Modularization including a reduced set of mo ...
. A version of Cascading Style Sheets (
CSS Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone techno ...
) called WAP CSS is supported by XHTML MP.


MMS

Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a combination of WAP and
SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...
allowing for sending of picture messages.


History

The
WAP Forum WAP or Wap may refer to: Music * "WAP" (song), a 2020 song by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion Organizations * Weatherization Assistance Program, for US energy costs * Western Australia Party, a political party founded in 2016 * Western ...
was founded in 1998 by Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia and Unwired Planet. It aimed primarily to bring together the various wireless technologies in a standardised protocol. In 2002, the WAP Forum was consolidated (along with many other forums of the industry) into
Open Mobile Alliance OMA SpecWorks, previously the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) is a standards organization which develops open, international technical standards for the mobile phone industry. It is a nonprofit Non-governmental organization (NGO), not a formal govern ...
(OMA).


Europe

The first company to launch a WAP site was Dutch
mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
operator Telfort BV in October 1999. The site was developed as a side project by Christopher Bee and Euan McLeod and launched with the debut of the
Nokia 7110 The Nokia 7110 is a GSM mobile phone announced in February 1999 and released in October 1999. It was the first mobile phone to run Series 40 and to come with a WAP browser. It was preceded by the Nokia 8146/8148 which was released in 1996 and it ...
. Marketers hyped WAP at the time of its introduction, leading users to expect WAP to have the performance of fixed (non-mobile)
Internet access Internet access is the ability of individuals and organizations to connect to the Internet using computer terminals, computers, and other devices; and to access services such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is sold by Internet ...
.
BT Cellnet O₂ UK (legally incorporated as Telefonica UK Limited, stylized as O₂) is a British telecommunications services provider, headquartered in Slough, England. It operates under the O2 brand. It is owned by Virgin Media O2, a 50:50 joint ventu ...
, one of the UK
telecoms Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
, ran an advertising campaign depicting a cartoon WAP user ''surfing'' through a ''
Neuromancer ''Neuromancer'' is a 1984 science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson. Considered one of the earliest and best-known works in the cyberpunk genre, it is the only novel to win the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and ...
''-like "information space". In terms of speed, ease of use, appearance and interoperability, the reality fell far short of expectations when the first handsets became available in 1999. This led to the wide usage of sardonic phrases such as "Worthless Application Protocol", "Wait And Pay", and WAPlash. Between 2003 and 2004 WAP made a stronger resurgence with the introduction of wireless services (such as Vodafone Live!, T-Mobile T-Zones and other easily accessible services). Operator revenues were generated by transfer of GPRS and
UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the Inte ...
data, which is a different business model than used by the traditional Web sites and
ISP An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...
s. According to the Mobile Data Association, WAP traffic in the UK doubled from 2003 to 2004. By the year 2013, WAP use had largely disappeared. Most major companies and websites have since retired from the use of WAP and it has not been a mainstream technology for web on mobile for a number of years. Most modern handset internet browsers now support full HTML, CSS, and most of
JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...
, and do not need to use any kind of WAP markup for webpage compatibility. The list of handsets supporting HTML is extensive, and includes all Android handsets, all versions of the iPhone handset, all Blackberry devices, all devices running Windows Phone, and many Nokia handsets.


Asia

WAP saw major success in Japan. While the largest operator NTT DoCoMo did not use WAP in favor of its in-house system
i-mode NTT DoCoMo's i-mode is a mobile internet (distinct from wireless internet) service popular in Japan. Unlike Wireless Application Protocols, i-mode encompasses a wider variety of internet standards, including web access, e-mail, and the packet- ...
, rival operators
KDDI () is a Japanese telecommunications operator formed on October 1, 2000 through the merger of DDI Corp. (Daini-Denden Inc.), KDD (Kokusai Denshin Denwa) Corp. (itself a former listed state-owned enterprise privatized in 1998), and IDO Corp. It h ...
( au) and
SoftBank Mobile is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the Vi ...
(previously
Vodafone Japan is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the Vi ...
) both successfully deployed WAP technology. In particular, ( au)'s chakuuta or chakumovie (ringtone song or ringtone movie) services were based on WAP. Like in Europe, WAP and i-mode usage declined in the 2010s as HTML-capable smartphones became popular in Japan.


United States

Adoption of WAP in the US suffered because many cell phone providers required separate activation and additional fees for data support, and also because telecommunications companies sought to limit data access to only approved data providers operating under license of the signal carrier. In recognition of the problem, the US
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
(FCC) issued an order on 31 July 2007 which mandated that licensees of the 22-megahertz wide "Upper 700 MHz C Block" spectrum would have to implement a wireless platform which allows customers, device manufacturers, third-party application developers, and others to use any device or application of their choice when operating on this particular licensed network band.Alternate link t
"FCC Revises 700 MHz Rules to Advance Interoperable Public Safety Communications and Promote Wireless Broadband Deployment"
/ref>


Criticism

Commentators criticized several aspects of
Wireless Markup Language Wireless Markup Language (WML), based on XML, is a now-obsolete markup language intended for devices that implement the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) specification, such as mobile phones. It provides navigational support, data input, hyp ...
(WML) and WAP. Technical criticisms include: *The
idiosyncratic An idiosyncrasy is an unusual feature of a person (though there are also other uses, see below). It can also mean an odd habit. The term is often used to express eccentricity or peculiarity. A synonym may be "quirk". Etymology The term "idiosyncr ...
WML language: WML cut users off from the conventional
HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...
Web, leaving only native WAP content and Web-to-WAP proxi-content available to WAP users. However, others argue that technology at that stage would simply not have been able to give access to anything but custom-designed content which was the sole purpose of WAP and its simple, reduced complexity interface as the citizens of many nations are not connected to the web at the present time and have to use government funded and controlled portals to WAP and similar non-complex services. *Under-specification of terminal requirements: The early WAP standards included many optional features and under-specified requirements, which meant that compliant devices would not necessarily interoperate properly. This resulted in great variability in the actual behavior of phones, principally because WAP-service implementers and mobile-phone manufacturers did not obtain a copy of the standards or the correct hardware and the standard software modules. As an example, some phone models would not accept a page more than 1 Kb in size, and some would even crash. The user interface of devices was also underspecified: as an example, accesskeys (e.g., the ability to press '4' to access directly the fourth link in a list) were variously implemented depending on phone models (sometimes with the accesskey number automatically displayed by the browser next to the link, sometimes without it, and sometimes accesskeys were not implemented at all). *Constrained user interface capabilities: Terminals with small black-and-white screens and few buttons, like the early WAP terminals, face difficulties in presenting a lot of information to their user, which compounded the other problems: one would have had to be extra careful in designing the user interface on such a resource-constrained device which was the real concept of WAP. *Lack of good authoring tools: The problems above might have succumbed in the face of a WML authoring tool that would have allowed content providers to easily publish content that would interoperate flawlessly with many models, adapting the pages presented to the
User-Agent In computing, a user agent is any software, acting on behalf of a user, which "retrieves, renders and facilitates end-user interaction with Web content". A user agent is therefore a special kind of software agent. Some prominent examples of us ...
type. However, the development kits which existed did not provide such a general capability. Developing for the web was easy: with a text editor and a web browser, anybody could get started, thanks also to the forgiving nature of most desktop browser rendering engines. By contrast, the stringent requirements of the WML specifications, the variability in terminals, and the demands of testing on various wireless terminals, along with the lack of widely available desktop authoring and emulation tools, considerably lengthened the time required to complete most projects. , however, with many mobile devices supporting XHTML, and programs such as Adobe Go Live and Dreamweaver offering improved web-authoring tools, it is becoming easier to create content, accessible by many new devices. *Lack of user agent profiling tools: It quickly became nearly impossible for web hosts to determine if a request came from a mobile device, or from a larger more capable device. No useful profiling or database of device capabilities were built into the specifications in the unauthorized non-compliant products. Other criticisms address the wireless carriers' particular implementations of WAP: *Neglect of content providers: Some wireless carriers had assumed a "build it and they will come" strategy, meaning that they would just provide the transport of data as well as the terminals, and then wait for content providers to publish their services on the Internet and make their investment in WAP useful. However, content providers received little help or incentive to go through the complicated route of development. Others, notably in Japan (cf. below), had a more thorough dialogue with their content-provider community, which was then replicated in modern, more successful WAP services such as
i-mode NTT DoCoMo's i-mode is a mobile internet (distinct from wireless internet) service popular in Japan. Unlike Wireless Application Protocols, i-mode encompasses a wider variety of internet standards, including web access, e-mail, and the packet- ...
in Japan or th
Gallery
service in France. *Lack of openness: Many wireless carriers sold their WAP services as "open", in that they allowed users to reach any service expressed in WML and published on the Internet. However, they also made sure that the first page that clients accessed was their own "wireless portal", which they controlled very closely. Some carriers also turned off editing or accessing the address bar in the device's browser. To facilitate users wanting to go off deck, an address bar on a
form Form is the shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object. In a wider sense, the form is the way something happens. Form also refers to: *Form (document), a document (printed or electronic) with spaces in which to write or enter data ...
on a page linked off the hard coded home page was provided. It makes it easier for carriers to implement filtering of off deck WML sites by URLs or to disable the address bar in the future if the carrier decides to switch all users to a walled garden model. Given the difficulty in typing up fully qualified URLs on a phone keyboard, most users would give up going "off portal" or out of the
walled garden A walled garden is a garden enclosed by high walls, especially when this is done for horticultural rather than security purposes, although originally all gardens may have been enclosed for protection from animal or human intruders. In temperate ...
; by not letting third parties put their own entries on the operators' wireless portal, some contend that operators cut themselves off from a valuable opportunity. On the other hand, some operators argue that their customers would have wanted them to manage the experience and, on such a constrained device, avoid giving access to too many services.


Protocol design lessons from WAP

The original WAP model provided a simple platform for access to web-like WML services and e-mail using mobile phones in Europe and the SE Asian regions. In 2009 it continued to have a considerable user base. The later versions of WAP, primarily targeting the United States market, were designed for a different requirement - to enable full web XHTML access using mobile devices with a higher specification and cost, and with a higher degree of software complexity. Considerable discussion has addressed the question whether the WAP protocol design was appropriate. The initial design of WAP specifically aimed at protocol independence across a range of different protocols (SMS, IP over PPP over a circuit switched bearer, IP over GPRS, etc.). This has led to a protocol considerably more complex than an approach directly over IP might have caused. Most controversial, especially for many from the IP side, was the design of WAP over IP. WAP's transmission layer protocol, WTP, uses its own retransmission mechanisms over UDP to attempt to solve the problem of the inadequacy of TCP over high-packet-loss networks.


See also

*
.mobi The domain name mobi is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. Its name is derived from the adjective ''mobile''. The domain was approved by ICANN on 11 July 2005, and is managed by the mTLD global r ...
*
i-mode NTT DoCoMo's i-mode is a mobile internet (distinct from wireless internet) service popular in Japan. Unlike Wireless Application Protocols, i-mode encompasses a wider variety of internet standards, including web access, e-mail, and the packet- ...
*
Mobile browser A mobile browser is a web browser designed for use on a mobile device such as a mobile phone or PDA. Mobile browsers are optimized to display Web content most effectively on small screens on portable devices. Mobile browser software must be sma ...
* Mobile development *
Mobile web The mobile web refers to mobile browser-based World Wide Web services accessed from handheld mobile devices, such as smartphones or feature phones, through a mobile or other wireless network. History and development Traditionally, the World ...
*
RuBee RuBee ( IEEE standard 1902.1) is a two way active wireless protocol designed for harsh environment and high security asset visibility applications. RuBee utilizes longwave signals to send and receive short (128 byte) data packets in a local region ...
*
WAP Identity Module WIM (WAP Identity Module or Wireless Identification Module) is a module that is part of a wireless device. It is based on the Wireless Application Protocol, WAP 1.2 specification enabling secure transactions and non-repudiation based on a digital si ...
*
Wireless Internet Protocol Wireless Internet Protocols are the suite of wireless protocols after Wireless Application Protocol 2.0 (WAP). It includes XHTML Basic, Nokia's XHTML Mobile Profile, and future developments of WAP by the Open Mobile Alliance. Wireless Internet P ...
*
Wireless transaction protocol Wireless transaction protocol (WTP) is a standard used in mobile telephony. It is a layer of the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) that is intended to bring Internet access to mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellp ...
*
WURFL WURFL (Wireless Universal Resource FiLe) is a set of proprietary application programming interfaces (APIs) and an XML configuration file which contains information about device capabilities and features for a variety of mobile devices, focused ...


References

{{Authority control Open Mobile Alliance standards Internet protocols Mobile telecommunications standards