WAP -WIRELESS APPLICATION PROTOCOL

The WAP Forum

In 1997, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, and Unwired Planet formed the WAP Forum(www.wapforum.org). More than 90 companies in the wireless telecommunications business are members of the WAP Forum. WAP is the standard developed by the WAP Forum, a consortium formed by device manufacturers, service providers, content providers, and  application providers. WAP specifies an application framework and protocols for wireless devices. WAP is a kind of fusion of mobile networking technologies and Internet technologies.

The WAP Forum’s objectives include :

·         To bring Internet content and advanced data services to digital cellular phones and  other wireless terminals.

·          To create an interoperable wireless protocol specification that will work across  differing wireless network technologies.

·          To enable the creation of content and applications that could scale across a wide range of wireless bearer networks and device types.

·         To embrace and extend existing standards and technologies

The key features provided by WAP include :

·         A programming model similar to the Internet

·         Wireless Markup Language(WML)

·         WML Script

·         Wireless Telephony Application(WTA)

·         Optimized protocol stack

The WAP architecture provides a scalable and extensible environment for application  development on mobile communication devices. It achieves this through a layered protocol design, covering protocols at Layer 4 and above. The WAP protocol stack is independent of the underlying network, which could take the form of GSM, CDMA, CDPD, iDEN, etc. Hence, WAP is essentially an application stack specification; it is not network-centric.

Wireless Application Environment(WAE)

Generally, WAE enables a spectrum of applications to be supported over WAP. WAE has two main elements, namely: (a) user agents, and (b) services and formats. The former includes the WML and WTA(Wireless Telephone Application) user agents. The latter consists of WML scripts, image formats, etc. A user agent can take the form of a Web browser. The WML user  agent is responsible for the interpretation of WML and WMLScript. WAP employs the same addressing model as in the Internet, that is, it use Uniformed Resource Locators(URLs). AURL uniquely identifies an available resource. WAP also uses Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) to address resources that are not accessed via well-known protocols.

Wireless Session Protocol(WSP)

The WSP provides both connection-oriented and connectionless services. It is optimized for low-bandwidth networks with relatively long latency. WSP is a binary version of HTTP version  1.1, but with the additions of : (a) session migrations, (b) header caching, etc. WAP connection mode allows the establishment of sessions between a client and the WAP gateway or proxy. It  can handle session interruptions as a result of mobility and reestablish session states at a later point in time. Header caching allows better bearer utilization since in HTTP, most of the  requests contain static headers that need to be re-sent again.

Wireless Transaction Protocol(WTP)

WTP is designed for transaction-style communications on wireless devices. In a transaction, users express their intentions and financial commitments to service providers for processing Very often, such transactions demand reliable, fast, and secure communications. WTP is a  lightweight protocol suitable for implementation in thin clients. WTP implements selective  retransmission of lost segments.

Wireless Transport Layer Security(WTLS)

WTLS is needed for WAP to ensure data integrity, privacy, authentication, and protection from denial-of-service. It is based on Transport Layer Security(TLS) 1.0, but optimized for  wireless channels. It provides transport layer security between a WAP client and the WAP gateway/proxy. Digital certificates are used for authentication and non repudiation of server and client. Encryption is also used to enhance the degree of confidentiality.

Wireless Datagram Protocol(WDP)

WDP is the transport layer protocol in WAP. It has the same functionality provided by the  Internet User Datagram Protocol(UDP). Whether WAP uses UDP or WDP, datagram delivery  services are provided by port number functionality and the characteristics of different beare services are hidden from the upper layers. WDP can be extended to provide segmentation and

reassembly functions