| Wireless
Application Protocol |
Definition
The Wireless Application Protocol Forum is an industry group dedicated to
the goal of enabling sophisticated telephony and information services on handheld
wireless devices. These devices include mobile telephones, pagers, personal digital
assistants (PDAs) and other wireless terminals. Recognizing the value and utility
of the World Wide Web architecture, the WAP forum has chosen to align its technology
closely with the Internet and the Web. The WAP specification extends and leverages
existing technologies, such as IP, HTTP, XML, SSL, URLs, scripting and other content
formats. Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia and Unwired Planet founded the WAP Forum in
June, 1997.
Since then, it has experienced impressive membership growth with
members joining from the ranks of the world's premiere wireless service providers,
handset manufacturers, infrastructure providers, and software developers. WAP
Forum membership is open to all industry participants. Goals
of WAP Forum
The WAP Forum has the following
goals:
To bring Internet content and advanced
data services to Wireless phones and other wireless terminals.
To
create a global wireless protocol specification that works across all wireless
network technologies. To enable the creation
of content and applications that scale across a wide range of wireless bearer
networks and device types.
To embrace
and extend existing standards and technology wherever possible and appropriate.
It is also very important for the WAP Forum's
specification in such a way that they complement existing standards. For example,
the WAPV1.0 specification is designed to sit on top of existing bearer channel
standards so that any bearer standard can be used with the WAP protocols to implement
complete product solutions. When the WAP Forum identifies a new area of technology
where a standard does not exist, or exists but needs modification for wireless,
it works to submit its specifications to other industry standard groups. WAP
Protocol Stack
Any network is organized as
a series of layers or levels where each level performs a specific function. The
set of rules that governs the communication between the peer entities within a
layer are called protocols. The layers and protocols together forms the Protocol
Stack. The request from the mobile device is sent as a URL through the operator's
network to the WAP gateway, which is the interface between the operator's network
and the Internet.
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