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Technology> FAQs> WAP FAQs
WAP FAQs
What is WAP?
WAP is short for Wireless Application Protocol. It is a method
of letting a wireless device, usually a mobile phone, view
Internet pages, using text only, and very simple black and
white pictures. Naturally, it isn't quite as simple as that.
Web sites have to be specially designed for WAP phones, and
the pages have to be fairly small as the data speed on mobile
phones is a lot slower than on domestic modems. Also, all
the phones will have screens of different shapes and sizes,
so pages will look different depending on the phone your are
using.
Is WAP secure?
It depends on what you are trying to do. For day-to-day use,
WAP is as secure as the mobile phone standard that your phone
works on. As that will probably be GSM, CDMA or TDMA, it is
basically very secure against eavesdropping. If you were interested
in m-commerce, buying plane tickets, for example, over a WAP
phone, then it is fairly secure. The signal from your phone
to the WAP gateway, and from the WAP gateway is totally secure,
as secure as a normal e-commerce web site. For routine use,
giving your credit card details to a WAP site should not be
any more of a problem than handing it over to a waiter in
a restaurant.
How is WAP different from SMS?
SMS stands for Short Messaging Services where a mobile user
can send short messages (up till 160 characters) to any other
mobile user. However, the mobile operator must support SMS
for this service. SMS is characterised by two modes "push",
where the information is sent to the mobile and "pull" where
the customer requests for information and the result is sent
as a short message to his phone. WAP is different from SMS
in the aspect that it supports more than 160 characters. (The
limit is 1400 characters per card). It is interactive for
the user. Entire portals can be developed and made available
to users on their WAP phones. The portal is visible on WAP
browsers included in WAP phones. Simply put, it is the technology
that makes the Internet available on mobile phones.
How does a WAP device connect to the
Internet?
Data travels from the WAP device receiving station, much like
all voice calls do with mobile cell phones. This receiving
station is known as a WAP Gateway, and its task is to act
as a middleman between a WAP device and a web-based resource
(in other words a web server directly connected to the Internet).
How can I subscribe to your services?
You can register through our site by providing the necessary
registration details. This will allow you to subscribe to
a range of services. You can also personalise your preferred
services and applications by specifying your details.
How do I benefit from Ducont services?
Ducont offers information services and transactional services
available on the web and your mobile. It is your one-stop-shop
for all your needs. This includes banking, news, movie tickets,
stock broking, ordering food, taxi rentals, and airline timetables,
to name a few. All this can be done from your mobile phone
on the move.
How do I configure my WAP phone to subscribe
to your services?
Our website 'www.ducont.com' provides a detailed step-by-step
instructions to configure various brands of WAP enabled mobile
phones.
Which are the information and transaction
services available to me?
Information services from Ducont include bank account balances,
stock prices, news, movie schedules, airline information,
weather reports, prayer times, and stock games. More categories
will be announced as we tie-up. Transaction services include
funds transfer between bank accounts, stock trading, bill
payments, and booking tickets.
Can I access your m-commerce services
through a prepaid service?
Yes. We are planning to offer our WAP application services
as packages suited to various categories of users. The packages
are proposed as prepaid services.
Which are the most popular WAP phones
available today?
Nokia 7110, Nokia 9110i, Ericsson R320, Ericsson R380, Siemens
C35, Motorola Timeport, and the Sony CMD Z5.
Why can't I see Internet pages on
my WAP phone exactly as they appear on a PC?
WAP is developed using WML. This is a subset of XML and HTML
and supports a very limited range of tags. This is the main
reason why the WAP pages differ from what they appear on the
Internet. Of course, one of the other reasons is also that
your WAP phone screen size is really small.
Will a non-WAP phone ever be able to see
WAP pages?
This is possible. The companies that manufacture the SIM cards
used in GSM and TDMA phones are working on a new SIM-based
WAP browser. It won't be as fully featured as a normal WAP
phone, but it will offer a basic WAP service. As most phones
will be WAP enabled by the end of the year, within two years,
we would expect that to die out, but it does offer a cheap
way of getting the WAP service if you did not want to change
your phone.
Can I play audio and video files on a WAP
phone?
Currently, WAP phones do not support audio and video files.
However, with the coming of GPRS, which support large bandwidth,
mobile phones of the future will have multimedia capability.
How long is WAP going to be about?
Firstly, while it is true that mobile phone data speeds will get
faster, that will take several years to begin, and even then not
every one will upgrade to the new systems. So, on that premise,
WAP will be around for a minimum of five years, which in the Internet
world, is a massively long time! Also, web browsers for the PC,
such as the one you are using now, will soon come with the ability
to view WAP pages, so you won't even need a WAP enabled mobile phone.
Finally, it doesn't cost a lot to put WAP into a mobile phone, and
prices are falling all the time, so it is expected that by the third
quarter of this year, almost all new mobile phones sold, will be
WAP enabled.
I just got
a phone but cannot see any sites.
There could be a few reasons for that. Firstly, have you or
the company that sold you the phone, set up the WAP gateway
in the phone? You will need to check with the phone manual
to check how to do that. If the gateway was not set-up, we
advise that you contact your provider, as they may need to
set it up at their end as well. Another one is to check that
you typed in the WAP page address, not the normal web page
address, as most, but not all, WAP addresses are different
to the web address. Finally, the phone has to be able to send
as well as receive data, as well as the usual voice calls.
Not all networks actually enable that service when you buy
the phone, so you may need to contact them to double check
that you can send data.
Is it just text, or can I see pictures as
well?
Yes, you can see pictures, but black and white only. Well, actually
as most mobile phones have a green background, it is technically
black and green! The restriction is twofold; firstly there are very
few mobile phones that have colour displays anyway. However, the
main reason, is speed, as stated before, the data speed of a mobile
phone is quite slow compared to a domestic modem, so pictures take
a while to download. Keeping them simple will reduce the amount
of time it takes to download them. Don't be deterred though, one
of the first ever applications of WAP was on the Paris metro, to
offer maps to WAP enabled phones.
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