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How WAP Gets You On The Web

Lost In The Translation

On The Same Wavelength

Every great journey begins with a first step. Many leaders in the telecommunications industry are convinced that the first step toward a wireless Web is a set of technical specifications called theWireless Application Protocol, or WAP.

HOW WAP GETS YOU ON THE WEB

In recent years the leading wireless companies have introduced data networks that allow cell phone users to pull information from the World Wide Web and display it on the phones’ tiny screens. The WAP specifications would essentially standardize how the networks transmit Web documents to cell phones, pagers and other handheld devices. Wireless carriers in Europe are currently implementing the WAP standards in their data networks, and some U.S. carriers—including Sprint PCS and Nextel—promise to do so in the near future. WAP’s proponents say that the transition will accelerate the growth of the wireless Web. But critics counter that the WAP specifications are inadequate because they severely limit the user’s access to the Internet. It is still unclear whether WAP will truly usher in a golden age of wireless data or turn out to be just a false start.

The Wireless Application Protocol evolved from technologies developed by Phone.com, a software company based in Redwood City, Calif. The great obstacle to wireless Web access is the fact that cellular phones and their networks are not robust enough to handle HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the lingua franca of the Internet. The publishers of Web sites use HTML to weave text and graphics into simple, easy-to-navigate documents. Current cell phone networks, however, have a low bandwidth: they relay data much more slowly than fixed-line networks do, making it difficult if not impossible to transmit Web pictures wirelessly. And today’s cell phones do not have the processing power or the display screens needed to show complex images.

To get around these problems, the software engineers at Phone.com created Handheld Device Markup Language (HDML), which was specifically designed for wireless networks. HDML allows the text portions of Web pages to be transmitted to cell phones and other mobile devices. Many of the wireless data networks in the U.S. incorporated Phone.com’s software into their phones and network servers. What is more, Phone.com allied with three cell phone manufacturers—Motorola, Nokia and Ericsson—to devise a standardized language based on HDML. The result was Wireless Markup Language (WML), which became the core of the WAP specifications. The companies also formed an industry group called the WAP Forum to promote the new standards. The group now has more than 530 members.

Here’s how a WAP network taps into the Web: first, the owner of a WAP-enabled phone uses the device’s microbrowser—a pared-down version of the browser software used by PCs to navigate the Internet—to request a specific Web page [see illustration on opposite page]. The request goes over the airwaves to a cellular transmission tower and is then routed to a server operated by the wireless carrier. Running on the server is the WAP gateway: software that serves as a filter between the wireless network and the Internet. The gateway finds the Web page requested by the cell phone user. If the page is written in HTML (as most Web pages are), coding software converts the document to WML, stripping away the page’s graphics and any specialized formatting of the text, such as elegant fonts. The WAP gateway encodes the WML translation so that it can be transmitted wirelessly, and then the document is sent to the user’s cell phone, where it appears on the device’s small screen.

Conversion from HTML to WML, however, is usually not trouble-free. If a Web page uses pictures as links to other pages, for example, the page has to be rewritten to provide text links instead. In practice, this conversion frequently limits the amount of accessible information and occasionally makes the Web page completely unreadable. For this reason, many Web publishers have created separate versions of their pages written in WML and expressly tailored for WAP devices. For example, MapQuest, MSNBC.com and Go2Online.com have created WAP versions of their sites. WAP users can find a list of more than 5,000 WAP-friendly sites by visiting www. cellmania.com.

With the help of these portals, cell phone users can call up sports scores, airline flight schedules or the latest book bargains from Amazon.com. But the range of services and information that can be accessed by cellular phones is only a small fraction of the wealth of data available on the Internet. Some analysts believe that the WAP standards will swiftly become obsolete as cell phone technology advances. “WAP was designed for the low-bandwidth cellular networks of the 1990s,” says Rich Luhr, an analyst with Herschel Shostech, a technology consulting firm in Wheaton, Md. “And it was designed for phones that had no graphics capabilities and screens with only two to four lines of text.” According to Luhr, as wireless networks and devices improve, WAP’s raison d’être will disappear.

LOST IN THE TRANSLATION

The companies that are supporting WAP, however, say that the specifications can be revised to suit future technologies such as the high-bandwidth third-generation networks now being developed [see "The Third-Generation Gap]. Furthermore, they emphasize that WAP-compatible phones are not intended as substitutes for Web-browsing PCs.

“WAP isn’t about browsing the Internet,” says Skip Speaks, general manager of Ericsson’s Network Operators Group. “It’s about delivering unique content that’s optimized for wireless devices.” Adds Scott Goldman, the chief executive officer of the WAP Forum: “Using or accessing the Internet from a wireless device is a different experience than accessing it from a PC. I use an analogy that accessing the Internet from a PC is like going to an all-you-can-eat buffet. You see a broad range of foods, pick and choose what you want, and move quickly from one food to another, putting as much as you want on your plate. WAP is more like room service. You see a menu, order what you want, and it’s delivered to you.”

Spurring Internet companies to produce more content for WAP phones is a high priority for the WAP Forum. But according to some analysts, creating a WAP-compatible Web page is more difficult than setting up a typical Internet page, because WML is harder to learn than HTML. The WAP Forum’s Goldman says that WML developer tools similar to those used for HTML will become more prevalent as WAP gains in popularity. Even so, the doubts about WAP’s future have made many Web developers leery: they do not want to invest the effort in creating separate pages for cell phone users if the standards are likely to become outdated. “No one wants to jump in and commit to anything until things settle down,” says Herb Williams of Spyglass, a software company based in Naperville, Ill. “There’s a lot of negativism about WAP, and that limits the amount of content available.”

ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH

WAP’s Weak Point

WAP has another hurdle to overcome: security. The current version of the standards includes a set of provisions called Wireless Transport Layer Security (WTLS), which specifies how to encrypt wireless data while they are in transit from the cell phone to the network operator. The WTLS techniques require less power and memory than the Secure Sockets Layer technology that is used to protect credit-card numbers and other sensitive information on the Internet. The system’s weak point, however, is the server that runs the network’s WAP gateway, where the data must be decrypted from the wireless coding and reencrypted using Internet coding. For a fraction of a second (the exact time depends on a network’s latency and speed) the cell phone user’s private information is unencrypted. Granted, this moment of vulnerability occurs on servers that are closely guarded by the wireless carriers. But critics insist that even a split second of exposure is too much. Goldman asserts that WAP’s security problem is a nonissue. “It’s like a one-inch hole in a 100-foot wall,” he says.

As if all these problems were not enough, a patent dispute also clouds WAP’s prospects. Geoworks, a company based in Alameda, Calif., that develops software for wireless communications, holds a patent for the user interface incorporated into WAP phones and is seeking a $20,000 annual licensing fee from any large company that uses the technology. Phone.com filed a suit against Geoworks this past April, challenging the validity of the patent. Two months later Geoworks filed a countersuit, saying that Phone.com’s activities infringe on Geoworks’s patent. Although the dispute may seem like mere posturing from two rival companies, the lawsuits and the uncertainty over licensing fees may have a chilling effect, says Eddie Hold of Current Analysis, a technology research firm in Sterling, Va. “The development of WAP is at the same stage as the development of the Internet in the early 1990s,” Hold says. “If the companies that developed content for the Internet had been required to pay a licensing fee, it’s quite possible there would not be an Internet today.”

Furthermore, WAP is not the only game in town. Some wireless networks in the U.S. may decide to stick with their current HDML-based microbrowsers and gateways rather than switch to the standardized WAP software. Technologically, there is not much difference between WAP and HDML. WAP’s advantage is that it is an open standard rather than a proprietary system; the operator of a WAP network can buy its microbrowsers and gateways from a variety of vendors instead of relying solely on Phone.com. Switching from HDML to WAP, however, has its costs. A network operator must replace any equipment that is not compatible with the WAP standards, including older cell phones that work only with HDML.

Some analysts are certain that U.S. carriers will eventually rally around WAP as the European carriers have done. But the bigger question is whether wireless customers will actually use the data services that WAP provides [see "The Future Is Here. Or Is It?" on page 50]. Many observers believe that WAP networks will not become popular unless the wireless carriers charge no more for data services than they do for voice communications. “WAP content should be used as a point of leverage to garner and retain voice customers,” Luhr says.

In the end, WAP’s future may hinge on the attitudes of its promoters. The current wireless networks are not as open as the Internet; the carriers and hardware manufacturers are controlling, to a large degree, the kinds of data available on their phones. But the explosive growth of the Internet was a direct result of its openness. The medium became so popular because any business could create its own site on the Web with a minimum of effort and expense. Many analysts believe that the wireless data networks must follow this model to succeed. Says Luhr: “Today’s WAP is about control, so the wireless industry can tell people what to do and what to look at. WAP must evolve beyond that.”

The Author

KAREN J. BANNAN is a freelancer who writes and edits for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Internet World and PC World, among other publications.