WAP - simply explained

Mobile surfing has not always been as easy and fast as it is today. In this practical tip, we explain what the standard WAP has to do with it.

WAP explains: What is it actually?

Nowadays we can achieve a download speed of over 100 Mbit / s on the smartphone via LTE. A few years ago, the Internet speed on mobile phones was limited to a few kbit / s. Mobile surfing was not only slow, it was also expensive.

• WAP brought a solution to the problem. The abbreviation stands for the Wireless Application Protocol. The main aim of WAP was to optimize websites for mobile phones with small displays. Smaller amounts of data resulted in lower costs and shorter waiting times.
• In the meantime, however, WAP is no longer very important. Current smartphones open websites, such as computers, via HTML instead of WAP. Only a few websites still support access via WAP.

Wireless Application Protocol: WAP 1.0 to 2.0

• The first version WAP 1.0 was released in 1997. Website operators were able to use WAP to make their websites available not only for computers, but also for mobile phones. Instead of HTML for computers, WML (Wireless Markup Language) was used.
• The data of the accessed websites run via a so-called WAP gateway, where the data is compressed and forwarded to the cell phone. This reduces the expensive data consumption and the loading times are reduced. In contrast to the usual HTML pages, all images and videos on the website are usually missing.
• The WAP push technology was later used via WAP 1.2. Ringtones in particular were loaded onto mobile phones via WAP-Push. The download links that download the ringtone directly via WAP were sent by SMS. WAP is also used to send MMS messages.
• WAP 2.0 was introduced a few years later. The new standard had little to do with WAP 1.0. Like a computer, cell phones could now access normal websites via HTML. Instead of HTML, the XHTML variant optimized for mobile phones was used.
• Thanks to UMTS and EDGE, the mobile Internet became significantly faster. So it finally makes sense to transfer pictures or even videos using WAP 2.0.

In the next practical tip we will explain what the WAP billing is about.