Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) William Thau CSC 8560 Dr. L. Cassel

What is WAP?  “Wireless application protocol (WAP) is an application environment and set of communication protocols for wireless devices designed to enable manufacturer-, vendor-, and technology- independent access to the Internet and advanced telephony services.”  In other words, it allows wireless devices to access the Internet and some other cutting-edge services

What is WAP (continued)  WAP is currently a global standard  Started in 1997 by the “WAP Forum”- consisting of Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, and Unwired Planet.  WAP specifications define a set of protocols in application, session, transaction, security, and transport layers which allow developers to create and access new services

How does WAP work?  Based on the Internet model, the wireless device contains a microbrowser, while content and applications are hosted on Web servers.

How does WAP work (cont’d)  A WAP device (such as a mobile phone) is obviously very different then a computer terminal  Internet standards such as hypertext markup language (HTML), HTTP, TLS and transmission control protocol (TCP) are inefficient over mobile networks, because they require large amounts of mainly text-based data (such as HTML documents) to be sent.  In Addition, standard HTML content cannot be effectively displayed on the small-size screens of pocket-sized mobile phones and pagers.

How does WAP work (cont’d)  Web pages for WAP devices are written in WML, which is a subset of XML  End users can therefore access web content in a fashion similar to a desktop or laptop computer

 WDP The WAP datagram protocol (WDP) is the transport layer that sends and receives messages via any available bearer network  WTLS Wireless transport layer security (WTLS), an optional security layer, has encryption facilities that provide the secure transport service required by many applications, such as e-commerce.  WTP The WAP transaction protocol (WTP) layer provides transaction support, adding reliability to the datagram service provided by WDP.  WSP The WAP session protocol (WSP) layer provides a lightweight session layer to allow efficient exchange of data between applications. Image and data courtesy of iec.org

The resource   Has a great deal of information regarding WAP  Is written as a tutorial for those who do not know very much about the subject  Provides a self test after reviewing the information