Where to use WAP

Where to use WAP

Where can WAP be used?

WAP can be uses by almost everyone with a mobile phone, handheld PC or PDA device when they are out and about. It can also be used at home, either by mobile phone or by one of the many household electronic devices that make use of it (e.g. digital set-top TV box).

What is the cost of using WAP?

As WAP uses data, there is a cost associated with its use. However, most mobile phones allow you a data download limit as part of your tariff or contract. WAP is less data-hungry than other methods of accessing the internet, so it would be the cheaper option for browsing. For items in the home, they would make use of your broadband connection and the impact would be minimal on the data allowance limits.

WAP explained

Since WAP was created in the mid 1990’s, most mobile phones are now WAP enabled. This means that users can access the internet from their own phone. WAP meant that any WAP enabled device could be used as a sort of mini-computer to access the internet. WAP would make main internet sites smaller, or shrunk down, so that information could be presented in a format to suit a smaller screened device. It would also take into account mobile phones and similar small gadgets’ processing ability and strip out ‘heavy’ graphics and just present simple layouts instead.

Because a wireless network has less bandwidth than a wired counterpart, WAP had to ensure that data heavy web pages could be simplified and used by a mobile phone or PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) device. Additionally, the battery on such a device has a short life so processing data had to be kept as efficient as possible within technological constraints to save on power.

WAP allowed users to input information using their phone keypad in the absence of a physical keyboard. To access a web page, a user would have to go via their default page set by their network provider or else know and input the ‘URL’ for that page. A ‘URL’ means Uniform Resource Locator. Each page or resource on the internet has a URL and the WAP enabled phone could access it and present it for viewing on the mobile phone screen.

WAP bridges the gap between the phone or PDA handset and the internet.