Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Can't call it the web if it's not HTTP

Author:Andrew Herron
Posted:12/20/1999; 7:02:03 PM
Topic:How to start WAPping
Msg #:13779 (In response to 13739)
Prev/Next:13778 / 13780

Hi Bob,

Of course your right - WAP was conceived, at least in part, as a way to protect to the mobile operators patch by giving them control of the gateway.

However the reality is that in the next few month's a large number of ISP's through out Europe will start to offer dialup access from WAP phones and will run their own 'open' gateways ie that are not restricted to the operators or anyone elses content/services. The WAP phone user will just dial into one of these ISP's instead of their operators ISP - it's just as easy to change your ISP settings as it is on a PC. In fact it is easier as with Nokia & Ericsson WAP phones at least the ISP can send a special kind of SMS to the mobile phone that includes all the setup info for the dial up connection.

Whatever the origins, motivations or limitations of WAP it will become a standard feature of all new mobile phones in the next 12 month's. In Europe alone that means in excess of 200 million mobile phones over the next 3 years - that's a big market by anyone's standards. Nokia are already shipping 1.8 million mobile phone per week world wide - notice i said 'per week'! This is a market which will on average have their mobile phone with them for 14 hours a day. What kinds of services work/make sense when you have the device with your essentially all the time - no matter where you are? What kinds of services can you build when you know that you can push content to the device? We are not talking about browsing Web content here - or at least initially we are'nt - the screens are too small and limited for that. We are talking about specific services that leverage Web/Internet content and take into account the user needs wherever they happen to be - a combination of time, personal value and location...all delivered to a device that fits in your jacket pocket. Dave's post about delivering surveys to the mobile phone is a perfect example - survey an audience as they leave a movie theatre...survey an airline passenger as they step out of a plane...get survey feedback anytime, any place...any where.

We are really excited about the potential in the WAP space...it's like the early days of the Web...the winners have not been chosen yet!

Regds

Andrew

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