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http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20010502S0007 Everything You Wanted To Know About WAP By Mitch Hochhauser , Network Computing May 2, 2001 (3:26 PM) URL: http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20010502S0007 The Wireless Application Protocol is still in its infancy here in the United States, but everyone wants in on the action. WAP is built on a layered protocol, making transmission of WAP content possible over almost any available wireless network. These networks include those based on CDPD (Cellular Digital Packet Data), CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access), GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), Flex, and iDEN (Integrated Dispatch Enhanced Network) technologies. WAP was designed and is maintained by the WAP Forum, which was created in 1998 through the joint efforts of Ericsson AB (stock: ERICY), Motorola Inc. (stock: MOT), and Nokia AB (stock: NOK). Today, the WAP Forum includes more than 100 members ranging from handset manufacturers to consulting firms. WAP consists primarily of two components. First is the all-important WAP browser, which is responsible for processing bytecode sent to it by the WAP gateway. The WAP gateway creates the interface between the Internet and the WAP browser. In a typical WAP transaction, the browser sends a request to the gateway, which then sends a request to the respective Web server on the Internet; the Web server responds to the gateway with the requested WML (Wireless Markup Language) file. The gateway encodes the file into bytecode, which is then transmitted to the WAP browser. Next, thebrowser decodes the bytecode and displays the requested website. Because bandwidth on wireless networks is limited, bytecode is used to transmit the WML file instead of just transmitting the raw WML file. WML works well for WAP devices because it is a fully compliant XML (Extensible Markup Language)-based language. It yields better efficiency than HTML because of its use of the deck concept. To understand this, think of a deck of cards. A single WML file contains a deck with multiple cards. Each card is a separately displayed screen, depending on the input from the user. Unlike with plain HTML-where every link you click on downloads a new HTML file-a single WML file contains many pages or cards. This reduces unnecessary downloading.� More from Network Computing Back to the Index