Knowledgebase: WAP
What
is WAP?
WAP stands for Wireless Application Protocol and is based on WML (Wireless
Markup Language), which is closely related to HTML (Hypertext Markup Language).
WAP is independent from any other mobile standards, therefore it is compatible
with all popular mobile communication networks. WAP is becoming the de
facto world-wide standard for information and telecommunication service
on mobile phones and other wireless devices such as PDAs, palmtops etc.
If you want your WAP-compatible device to show WML pages, you obviously
must request the page from a web server. Because of the restrictions of
cellular phones, PDAs and all other mobile devices, the data can’t
be transferred directly from the server. WML pages are first sent to a
WAP gateway. The WAP gateway has the responsibility to change the binary-coded
request into a http request and then send it to the Web server. The Web
server will now send the WML page to the WAP gateway, which will encode
the data into binary WML and send it to you. The function of a gateway
is to mediate between the mobile device and the web server.
Gateways (also called WAP Proxy) have a special role in the WAP system.
They are the heart of the whole system, because they connect the internet
with mobile communication. If, for example, a certain WML page is called
from a web server the request has to be sent to a gateway in BINARY CODE.
The gateway changes the binary code and then establishes a connection
with the desired web server. It then follows an http request over TCP/IP
to the web server. The web server delivers back the corresponding WML
file. After that the gateway changes everything back into binary code
and sends it to the mobile device for viewing. The change of a WML file
into bytecode requires a great degree of manipulation of the underlying
data. Since all WML files are usually only text files, the amount of data
will "shrink" to about a fourth of the original size. This makes
for a much better transmission rate than the HTTP protocol typically delivers.
How
do I make web pages viewable with WAP?
Although we do not offer a gateway service, we can offer you some pointers
on how to make your web pages 'come alive' thru wireless devices.
The programming language required to make web pages viewable on a wireless
device is Wireless Markup Language (WML), an HTML type language which
can be parsed in wireless device microbrowsers.
If you do not know how to code WML, a translator will be required to transform
your static HTML pages into WML pages. There are several translator/gateway
products on the market, with some providing both services. Some companies
that produce these are Oracle,IBM, Spyglass, Proxinet, EveryPath, and
AvantGo. None of these programs are cheap, however the costs are expected
to decline in the future much like products for HTTP have declined over
time.
Because of incompatibilities between these programs and the underlying
software that runs on our servers we cannot install these programs for
your use on the server. There are, however, off server resources you can
still use to "WAP enable" your web site. A few sites that we
have found that offer free WAP/WML general information, translators, and
gateway services can be found below:
http://digitalpaths.net
A free on-line gateway service that converts WML written pages for delivery
to wireless devices.
http://www.go2online.com
Provides a dynamic web page translation proxy.
http://ccwap.com
Comprehensive reference material for the Wireless Application Protocol
including image translators, tutorials, developers tools, etc.
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