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The success of the mobile internet market is not dependent on one thing only. Marketing, handset development, attractive content, packet-based networks and appealing tariffs are all important variables in the equation. WAP, the wireless application protocol, can be added to that list. Without an efficient and standardised way of formatting web content and applications onto handheld devices -- which is the promise of WAP -- it will be difficult for operators to exploit the full mobile internet potential.

Yet its detractors would have us believe that WAP single-handedly pulled the rug from underneath the mobile internet market in the late 1990s. But as we know full well, the truth is not that simple. It was circuit-switched GSM networks that led to the long connection times -- not WAP itself -- and it was the marketing hype by operators that led to inevitable end-user disappointment. Moreover, WAP can hardly be blamed for the small black and white handset screens, and nor can it be held solely responsible for dismally boring content.

"When WAP came onto the scene, a lot of mistakes were made by a lot of people," says Paul Lee, director of mobile and wireless research at Deloitte Consulting. "Market expectations were pumped up by operators to unrealistic levels and not much attention was given to designing attractive user interfaces. From speaking to people at Nokia, they tell me that for every extra button that the user has to press, the audience for that application halves. User-friendly navigation is a key issue that needs to be addressed by the whole industry."

Denis Hennessy, CTO with Network365 -- a Dublin-based developer of mobile application platforms -- agrees that WAP has been unfairly singled out for criticism. "The so-called failure of WAP has nothing to do with any technical limitations within the standard itself," he says. "You've got to remember that the i-mode service in Japan started out with a fairly ugly user interface, but because of the clever marketing, the 'always on' capability of NTT DoCoMo's packet network and the colour handsets, it became a success."

Not everyone believes that WAP was an innocent bystander when the 'mobile internet' market took its first, faltering steps in Europe. Nad Nadesan, marketing director with UK-based Peramon -- a company selling mobile applications to business customers -- argues that the need for gateways has made the mobile internet 'sell' a lot more difficult. "WAP gateways are a necessary evil, as they add another layer of complexity for the business customer," says Nadesan.

With WAP 1.x versions, gateways are required to sit between the origin server and the client (ie, mobile user) to handle protocol conversions -- WAP 1.x uses a wireless mark-up language (WML) to interface with the client, while servers use internet protocols based on HTML. According to Nadesan, business customers can be slow to make a decision on how best to move forward with mobile internet applications as they have to weigh up the pros and cons of either locating the WAP gateway at their own premise or at the operator's site.

Nadesan is also not a great fan of the 'push' service capability enabled by the WAP 1.2 version. "The theoretical difference between SMS and WAP in terms of push services is that SMS teases but does not deliver, while WAP both teases and delivers," says Nadesan. "Unfortunately, it hasn't worked out like that."

When operators 'push' out information alerts using SMS, the recipient cannot respond directly if that alert is based on updated internet-based information. With WAP 1.2 handsets, users should be able to click on the URL address link within the alert. "It sounds great, but the reality is that 'push' services over WAP have been very difficult to implement," says Nadesan. "I wouldn't feel comfortable about trying to sell that functionality to a potential customer -- it's for too difficult to use."

The arrival of WAP 2.0

In July 2001, the WAP Forum released specifications for WAP 2.0. Based on xHTML rather than WML, WAP 2.0 marks an alignment with fixed-line internet standards and supports IP, TCP and HTTP protocols. It also signals a convergence with NTT DoCoMo's i-mode service, which uses cHTML -- WAP 2.0 browsers can access both xHTML and cHTML content. NTT DoCoMo has also stated its intention to use xHTML for its 3G service. "This is a welcome development," says Nadesan, "as the last thing we need is a standards war."

Although WAP 2.0 handsets are not expected to be available until the second half of this year at the earliest, gateway vendors have already started to upgrade software to 2.0. But as the industry makes the transition from WAP 1 .x to WAP 2.0, both standards will work in conjunction since operators will not want to deploy parallel infrastructure to support different end-user devices -- Nadesan reckons it will be at least three years before everybody has a WAP 2.0 mobile phone.

When that time comes, it will theoretically be possible to get rid of the WAP gateway altogether as communication between the client and the origin server can be conducted without the need for any protocol conversions. The WAP Forum states, however, that a WAP 2.0 gateway may still be required to 'optimise the communication process' and will definitely be needed to offer 'push' services.

Critics of WAP say that the move towards xHTML is an implicit admission by the WAP Forum that it was wrong to opt for WML in the first place. Mike Short, an elected WAP Forum board member, strongly refutes that suggestion. "At the time when WAP was commercially launched [1998], the work of W3C [World Wide Web Consortium] was not sufficiently advanced to use fixed-line internet standards for wireless access," argues Short. "xHTML is a natural evolutionary step [for WAP] as the work of W3C progresses."

The WAP Forum has produced a detailed technical paper on the additional and enhanced services that WAP 2.0 provides -- these include the user agent profile (UAProf), which optimises transactions between the client and the server as information passed to the client can take into account the user's profile. Data synchronisation (using the SyncML language) and multimedia messaging service (MMS) are also standardised features within the WAP 2.0 specification. Moreover, there are significant user-navigation benefits to be had from using xHTML.

"The big difference with WAP 2.0 is that it can use the enhanced presentational capability of xHTML," says Network365's Hennessy. "With WAP 1 .x, the user experience is clunky at best, and not helped by the black and white LCD screens. By using WAP 2.0, the mobile internet experience will more closely resemble the fixed internet. For the first time it will be possible to hove polished-looking web sites delivered to the mobile phone."

Enhanced security is also described at length in the WAP 2.0 technical paper, yet Hennessy believes that security concerns are not the real reason behind the lack of in-commerce activity "Security has been a convenient excuse used by some in the industry for not developing in-commerce. Many banks, for instance, wishing to sound progressive, claim that they would like to go ahead but blame their lack of commitment on security concerns. The fact is that the security features of WAP 1.1 and WAP 1.2 are quite sufficient to do transaction services. For i-mode, which does not have such a secure platform as WAP 1 .x, it's clear that security has not been an overriding issue."

The operator experience

It's fair to say that mobile operators have not been inundated by WAP usage over their networks. T-Mobile, the mobile arm of Deutsche Telekom, which introduced its WAP service 8 months ago, is a typical example of what mobile operators are experiencing (or not experiencing to be more precise) -- it had three million WAP subscribers out of a total cellular base of 23 million by January 2002. "Frankly speaking, take-up could have been a lot better," says a T-Mobile spokesperson -- with more than a hint of understatement -- "but it's still a young service."

T-Mobile believes there is every reason for optimism, particularly as WAP frees the user from the SMS shackles of 160 characters and can create a chat room experience similar to that encountered on the fixed-line internet.

"Gossip, chat and dating are some of the more popular WAP services, simply because they relate to the PC internet experience," says the T-Mobile spokesperson. "I also anticipate that as applications become more feature rich, there will be a shift in the way that users think about their mobile devices. There will be a greater inclination towards using PDAs and not such a great desire as there is today to have the smallest phone."