WAP Clients and Gateways

WAP is a client server philosophy, requiring a microbrowser in the mobile phone and a WAP Gateway connected to the mobile network. By the middle of 1999, WAP clients such as the Nokia 7110 were becoming available in quantity and other phone vendors such as Alcatel and Motorola have announced that they are introducing support for the Wireless Application Protocol across their entire product range. However, since WAP requires a larger screen size and more memory to handle the WAP stack, it costs more to produce a WAP handset and will therefore mean more expensive mobile phone prices. WAP phones will therefore be distinguishable from their non WAP counterparts to the informed observer- and will have the "WWW:MMM" branding anyway - which the WAP Forum founders have agreed on to depict WAP terminals. Support by mobile phones for WAP will be the simple largest determinant of when WAP is a success.

SIM Application Toolkit is another wireless protocol that enables a similar functionality set to WAP. SIM Application Toolkit has been around for longer than WAP and is at a later stage of development and deployment than WAP but is a GSM only technology that has not been widely adopted by leading mobile phone vendors such as Nokia and Ericsson. SIM Application Toolkit is supported by perhaps a quarter of the installed base of GSM phones. It may be that application developers need to support BOTH WAP and SIM Application Toolkit AND standard SMS in their Gateways so that the applications and services can be offered to ALL mobile phone users, rather than just a subset. Widespread reach is of course essential in maximising use of the services and helping build a wireless Internet portal that is popular with all mobile phone users.

Despite today's lack of an installed base of WAP capable mobile phones, there are several vendors of WAP Gateways that network operators, content providers and application developers can work with to develop WAP-based services. WAP Gateways are installed into the mobile phone network to provide a gateway between the Internet and different mobile nonvoice services such as the Short Message Service, Circuit Switched Data and General Packet Radio Service. The WAP Gateway is essentially a piece of middleware, taking information from a web server, processing it, and sending it out over the mobile network to a WAP client.

Of the WAP Forum members, there are about a dozen suppliers of WAP Gateways. These WAP Gateway suppliers are all trying to sign up mobile network operators who are looking to trial WAP services and gain some market feedback. WAP trials will commence in the summer of 1999.

WAP Gateway suppliers include CMG, Nokia, Ericsson, Phone.com (formerly Unwired Planet), SST, Dr. Materna, APiON, MD-Co, Akumiitti and Oracle. SMS Server platform suppliers such as Sendit and Tecnomen have NOT developed their own WAP Gateway. Phone.com announced its acquisition of APiON in September 1999.

Comparison of WAP Gateways

 

The vendors APiON, CMG, Dr. Materna, Ericsson, Nokia and Phone.com are ranked according to the following comparison criteria:
VENDOR CUST COST WAP
BEAR		 NON-
WAP
BEAR		 WAP
STAND
COMP		 HARD BILL
APiON Med High High Low Med High Med
CMG Low High Med High High High High
Dr. Materna Med Med Low Low High High Hign
Ericsson Med N/A High Med High Low Med
Nokia High High Med Low High Low High
Phone.com Very High Med High Med Low Med Med

Source: Mobile Lifestreams Limited.

Note: A rating of "High" is better than "Med" and "Med" is a higher score than "Low".

Now that we have reviewed each of these gateway vendors, we will compare the key features:
 
Deployment
(CUST). Denotes the extent to which the WAP Gateway has been widely deployed. CMG has announced five customers for its Wireless Content Broker. APiON has announced 10 GSM operators. Dr. Materna is in the process of announcing its WAP customers. D2 is also using the Phone.com and Ericsson WebOnAir platform). Both Nokia and Ericsson are being used by a dozen or more network operators. Phone.com has about 35 network operators signed to use its UP.Server platform (excluding its pending acquisition of APiON).
 
Cost
(COST). Denotes the cost of the platform. APiON offers pay as WAP traffic grows pricing options. CMG charge between a quarter and half a million US dollars for an entry level WAP Gateway. This is considered a low entry cost by other WAP Gateway vendors. Between 30th June 1999 and 30th September 1999, Nokia will be offering a free download of its WAP Gateway 1.0 beta product from http://www.forum.nokia.com/. It offers essentially the same WAP product under two different product names to two different customer groups at two different prices. Dr. Materna expect their WAP Gateway to be priced above that of CMG, but pricing is still to be determined.
 
WAP Bearer Support
(WAP BEAR). Denotes the bearers that are supported by the WAP Gateway. The majority of the WAP Gateways have been designed as standalone WAP only gateways, even by vendors that support other non-WAP protocols and platforms. Dr. Materna only supports Circuit Switched Data as a bearer, although SMS is planned. APiON supports both Circuit Switched Data and SMS, and also USSD if SMPP is used as the protocol to the USSD server (as in the case of, for example, Logica Aldiscon's USSD server). Nokia and CMG both support both SMS and Circuit Switched Data. Phone.com's UP.Server supports by far the widest range of bearers - from GSM bearers to many other airlink standards. Ericsson's WAP Gateway supports Circuit Switched Data, SMS and USSD.
 
NON-WAP Bearer Support
(NON WAP BEAR). Denotes the bearers such as SIM Application Toolkit, standard SMS and so on that the WAP Gateway supports in addition to the WAP bearers it supports. APiON is a company that focuses on WAP only. Dr. Materna supports other bearers such as Cell Broadcast and SMS in its other platforms, but not its WAP Gateway. Nokia's WAP Gateway also supports Nokia Smart Messaging, a proprietary and little used wireless protocol. CMG also supports standard SMS, which is important since most all of the current installed base of mobile phones supports this nonvoice service, as will all new phones. Ericsson's WAP Gateway does not support SIM Toolkit, although its WebOnAir platform does.
 
WAP Standards Compliance
(STAND COMP). Denotes the extent to which the WAP Gateway complies with the standards set down by the WAP Forum. Phone.com's UP.Server offers enhanced features and functionality that are NOT currently incorporated into the WAP Forum specifications. As a result, end users must have a UP.Browser enabled phone in order to fully utilise Phone.com's offering. Nokia support the WAP standards to a high degree - the only non-WAP feature that is incorporated into the Nokia 7110 handset is the "Use Numbers" feature common to SMS. This would be part of the non-standardised Wireless Telephony Application (WTA). APiON too closely complies with the WAP 1.1 standards, although it has extended this to include content push capability that is not currently incorporated into the WAP standards. Ericsson supports WAP 1.1 and will implement other standardized features such as push and Wireless Telephony Application as they are incorporated into the WAP standard.
 
Hardware
(HARD). Denotes the type of hardware platform the WAP Gateway runs on. Most network operators would prefer a Unix platform that is considered more mature and stable than operating systems such as Windows NT. Nokia's WAP platform is based on a Windows NT platform, although Unix variants are being developed. Ericsson's WAP Gateway is based on Windows NT. APiON, Dr. Materna and CMG all supply their WAP Gateways on a Unix platform.
 
Billing
(BILL). Denotes the extent to which the WAP Gateway incorporates a billing engine. A billing engine is important since WAP is being positioned as a means through which companies with Internet content or non-mobile services can mobilise those offerings. The plan is to extend the mobile market into vertical market segments such as travel, finance, hotels, retail and entertainment. A billing engine allows these players to make money from their WAP-based offerings. Recognising the importance of being able to bill for content, CMG, Dr. Materna and Nokia have all included a billing engine with the WAP Gateway itself. Nokia's WAP Gateway also includes a Server Extension API for developing an interface to incumbent billing systems.
 
As such, we can see that each of the WAP Gateways have strengths and weaknesses. Selection will depend on intended use for the platform.
 

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