How WAP Works

The Cellular Explosion

Probably the most important factor in the birth of wireless Internet has been the proliferation of digital cell phones in the last few years. The expanding network of digital cellular and personal communication services (PCS) has created a solid foundation for wireless Internet services. It is estimated that there are more than 50 million Web-enabled cell phones in use. In 1997, Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson and Phone.com came together to create the WAP because they believed that a universal standard is critical to the successful implementation of wireless Internet. Since then, more than 350 companies have joined them in the WAP Forum.

Making a Web site accessible through a wireless device is quite a challenge. So far, only a small portion of the more than a billion Web sites provide any wireless Internet content. As the use of WAP-enabled devices grows, you can expect that many more Web sites will be interested in creating wireless content.

WAP is designed to work on any of the existing wireless services, using standards such as:

Short Message Service (SMS)
High-Speed Circuit-Switched Data (CSD)
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)
Unstructured Supplementary Services Data (USSD)

For more information, on these services, check out this page.