Wireless Application Protocol
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is an obsolete technical standard for accessing information over a mobile cellular network.
However the introduction of GPRS networks, offering a faster speed, led to an improvement in the WAP experience.
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, USSD, etc.
On native IP bearers such as GPRS, UMTS packet-radio service, or PPP on top of a circuit-switched data connection, WDP is in fact exactly UDP.
However WTP is more effective than TCP when packets are lost, a common occurrence with 2G wireless technologies in most radio conditions.
[12] 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.
Since this behaviour raises security concerns, some handsets handle WAP Push SL messages in the same way as SI, by providing user interaction.
It uses a cut-down version of XHTML with end-to-end HTTP, dropping the gateway and custom protocol suite used to communicate with it.
[16] The first company to launch a WAP site was Dutch mobile phone 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.
BT Cellnet, one of the UK telecoms, ran an advertising campaign depicting a cartoon WAP user surfing through a Neuromancer-like "information space".
[19][20] This led to the wide usage of sardonic phrases such as "Worthless Application Protocol",[21] "Wait And Pay",[22] and WAPlash.
Operator revenues were generated by transfer of GPRS and UMTS data, which is a different business model than used by the traditional Web sites and ISPs.
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 web browsers now support full HTML, CSS, and most of JavaScript, and do not need to use any kind of WAP markup for webpage compatibility.
[citation needed] In recognition of the problem, the US Federal Communications Commission (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.
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.
[28] 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.
The later versions of WAP, primarily targeting the United States market, were designed by Daniel Tilden of Bell Labs 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.
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.
