Proceeding of the 3rd International Conference on Informatics and Technology, 2009

Application of WAP for Internet Content and Services to Wireless Devices

* G.K.Viju, + S. Raviraja
*
Professor, Dept. of Computer Science, Karary University, Sudan.
+
Research Fellow, Dept of Artificial Intelligence, University of Malaya, Malaysia.
*
vijugk2005@gmail.com, + sraviraja@um.edu.com

Abstract

The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), a secure specification that allows users to access information instantly
via handheld wireless devices such as mobile phones, pagers, two-way radios, smart phones and communicators.
WAP supports most wireless networks. This includes CDPD, CDMA, GSM, PDC, PHS, TDMA, FLEX, ReFLEX,
iDEN, TETRA, DECT, DataTAC, and Mobitex. WAP is supported by all operating systems. Specifically engineered
for handheld devices include PalmOS, EPOC, Windows CE, FLEXOS, OS/9, and JavaOS. Although WAP
supports HTML and XML, the WML language (an XML application) is specifically devised for small screens and
one-hand navigation without a keyboard. WML is scalable from two-line text displays up through graphic screens
found on items such as smart phones and communicators. WAP also supports WMLScript. It is similar to
JavaScript, but makes minimal demands on memory and CPU power because it does not contain many of the
unnecessary functions found in other scripting languages. Because WAP is fairly new, it is not a formal standard
yet. It is still an initiative that was started by Unwired Planet, Motorola, Nokia, and Ericsson.

Keywords: - Wireless application protocol, WML, WAP protocol suite, Wireless application environment, XHTML
mobile profile, XHTML MP 1.2 PTD, ZHTML Mod, Document type declaration, wireless abstraction layer

1. Introduction

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is an open international standard for application layer network
communications in a wireless communication environment. Its main use is to enable access to the Mobile Web
from a mobile phone or PDA. WAP, that use displays and access the Internet run what are called micro browsers,
with small file sizes that can accommodate the low memory constraints of handheld devices and the low-
bandwidth constraints of a wireless-handheld network.

A WAP browser provides all of the basic services of a computer based web browser but simplified to operate
within the restrictions of a mobile phone, such as its smaller view screen. WAP sites are websites written in, or
dynamically converted to, WML (Wireless Markup Language) and accessed via the WAP browser. Before the
introduction of WAP, service providers had extremely limited opportunities to offer interactive data services.
Interactive data applications are required to support now commonplace activities such as Email by mobile phone,
tracking of stock market prices, Sports results, News headlines and Music downloads.

2. Technical Specification

The WAP standard describes a protocol suite that allows the interoperability of WAP equipment and software with
many different network technologies. The rationale for this was to build a single platform for competing network
technologies such as GSM and IS-95 (also known as CDMA) networks.

| Wireless Application Environment (WAE) |

+------------------------------------------+ \
| Wireless Session Protocol (WSP) | |
+------------------------------------------+ |
| Wireless Transaction Protocol (WTP) | | WAP
+------------------------------------------+ | protocol
| Wireless Transport Layer Security (WTLS) | | suite
+------------------------------------------+ |
| Wireless Datagram Protocol (WDP) | |
+------------------------------------------+ /
| *** Any Wireless Data Network *** |
+------------------------------------------+

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The bottom-most protocol in the suite is the WAP Datagram Protocol (WDP), which is an adaptation layer that
makes every data network look a bit like UDP to the upper layers by providing unreliable transport of data with two
16-bit port numbers (origin and destination). WDP is considered by all the upper layers as one and the same
protocol, which has several "technical realizations" on top of other "data bearers" such as SMS, USSD, etc. On
native IP bearers such as GPRS, UMTS packet-radio service, or PPP on top of a circuit-switched data connection,
WDP is in fact exactly UDP.

WTLS provides a public-key cryptography-based security mechanism similar to TLS. Its use is optional.

WTP provides transaction support (reliable request/response) that is adapted to the wireless world. WTP supports
more effectively than TCP the problem of packet loss, which is common in 2G wireless technologies in most radio
conditions, but is misinterpreted by TCP as network congestion.

Finally, WSP is best thought of on first approach as a compressed version of HTTP. This protocol suite allows a
terminal to emit requests that have an HTTP or HTTPS equivalent to a WAP gateway; the gateway translates
requests into plain HTTP.

2.1. Wireless Application Environment (WAE)

In this section, application-specific markup languages are defined for WAP version 1.X, the primary language of
the WAE is WML, which has been designed from scratch for handheld devices with phone-specific features. In
WAP 2.0, the primary markup language is XHTML Mobile Profile.

2.2. XHTML Mobile Profile

XHTML Mobile Profile (XHTML MP) is a hypertextual computer language standard designed specifically for mobile
phones and other resource-constrained devices. It is an XHTML document type defined by the Open Mobile
Alliance. XHTML-MP is derived from XHTML Basic 1.0 by adding XHTML Modules, with later versions of the
standard adding more modules. However, for certain modules, XHTML-MP does not mandate a complete
implementation so an XHTML-MP browser may not be fully conforming on all modules. The XHTML MP 1.2 DTD is
the current recommendation, which was finalized in March 2008.

2.3. The XHTML MP 1.2 DTD

This specification defines the mark-up language XHTML Mobile Profile, a language designed for resource-
constrained Web clients. This XHTML document type is based upon the module framework and the modules
defined by Modularization of XHTML” from the W3C. XHTML Mobile Profile is targeted at devices such as mobile
phones, PDAs, pagers and set-top boxes that do not support the full set of XHTML features. It extends XHTML
Basic with modules, elements and attributes to provide a richer authoring language. In addition to defining the
Document Type, Definition for XHTML Mobile Profile, this specification defines conformance requirements for user
agents that process XHTML Mobile Profile documents.

This specification defines XHTML Mobile Profile, a mark-up language designed for resource-constrained Internet
clients. The motivation for XHTML Mobile Profile is to provide an authoring language based upon XHTML that
addresses the special requirements of clients operating on resource-constrained devices such as mobile phones,
PDAs, pagers and set-top boxes. This specification is intended to be used to implement Internet clients that
support XHTML Mobile Profile. It can also be used as a guide for authoring content using XHTML Mobile Profile,
but this is not its primary purpose. XHTML Mobile Profile is an XHTML document type based upon the module
framework and the modules defined by Modularization of XHTML [XHTMLMod]. XHTML Mobile Profile is also a
strict subset of XHTML 1.1 [XHTML11] based upon XHTML Basic [XHTMLBasic]. It extends XHTML Basic to bring
enhanced functionality to application authors, including additional presentation elements, support for internal style
sheets, support for scripting, and many other features. XHTML Mobile Profile 1.1 builds upon 1.0 by adding
support for a scripting environment. This includes a mechanism for including scripts within a document and a
mechanism for binding scripts to events. In particular it is designed to integrate with ECMAScript Mobile Profile
[ESMP].

XHTML Mobile Profile 1.2 builds upon 1.1 by adding:

· Full XHTML forms, including file upload

· Definition of the implementation and use of the object element
· Extension for setting the input mode on a text form control

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2.4 Use of XHTML Mobile Profile

The XHTML Mobile Profile document type serves as an authoring language for content targeted at resource-
constrained devices. It is expected that it can be used for this purpose without further modification. The XHTML
Mobile Profile document type could also serve as a host language, that is, a language containing a mix of XML
vocabularies within one document type. Those considering its use as a host language should consider that it is not
strictly XHTML Host Language Conforming, as it only partially includes certain modules. “XHTML Host Language
Document Type Conformance” for more information.

2.5 Use of Script with XHTML Mobile Profile

The use of script with XHTML Mobile Profile is through the Scripting Module defined by [XHTMLMod]. The
Scripting Module defines elements and attributes used to contain information pertaining to executable scripts.
[XHTMLMod] normatively references [HTML4] for the semantics of these elements and attributes. To promote
interoperability, this specification attempts to clarify the processing of the elements and attributes of the Scripting
Module, and to tighten requirements. The semantics for these elements is therefore defined by [HTML4] and this
specification, with this specification taking precedence over [HTML4] as necessary.

2.6 DOCTYPE
A Document Type Declaration, or DOCTYPE, is an instruction that associates a particular SGML or XML
document (for example, a webpage) with a Document Type Definition (DTD) (for example, the formal definition of a
particular version of HTML). In the serialized form of the document, it manifests as a short string of markup that
conforms to a particular syntax.

The HTML layout engines in modern web browsers perform DOCTYPE "sniffing" or "switching", wherein the
DOCTYPE in a document served as text/html determines a layout mode, such as "quirks mode" or "standards
mode". The text/html serialization of HTML 5, which is not SGML-based, uses the DOCTYPE only for mode
selection. Since web browsers are implemented with special-purpose HTML parsers, rather than general-purpose
DTD-based parsers, they don't use DTDs and will never access them even if a URL is provided. The DOCTYPE is
retained in HTML 5 as a "mostly useless, but required" header only to trigger "standards mode" in commons
browsers.

To validate as XHTML-MP, a document must contain a proper Document Type Declaration, or DOCTYPE,
depending on the version of specification followed:

<source lang="xml"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD XHTML Mobile 1.0//EN"

"http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/xhtml-mobile10.dtd">
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD XHTML Mobile 1.1//EN"
"http://www.openmobilealliance.org/tech/DTD/xhtml-mobile11.dtd">
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD XHTML Mobile 1.2//EN"
"http://www.openmobilealliance.org/tech/DTD/xhtml-mobile12.dtd"> </source>

2.7 MIME types

The MIME type for XHTML Mobile Profile is "application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml". Conforming user agents should also
accept "application/xhtml+xml" and "text/html". Many desktop browsers will only validate XHTML-MP at display
time, if an XML MIME type is specified.

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is an Internet standard that extends the format of e-mail to support:

• Text in character sets other than ASCII

• Non-text attachments
• Message bodies with multiple parts
• Header information in non-ASCII character sets

MIME's use, however, has grown beyond describing the content of e-mail to describing content type in general,
including for the web.

Virtually all human-written Internet e-mail and a fairly large proportion of automated e-mail is transmitted via SMTP
in MIME format. Internet e-mail is so closely associated with the SMTP and MIME standards that it is sometimes
called SMTP/MIME e-mail.

The content types defined by MIME standards are also of importance outside of e-mail, such as in communication
protocols like HTTP for the World Wide Web. HTTP requires that data be transmitted in the context of e-mail-like
messages, although the data most often is not actually e-mail.

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MIME is specified in six linked RFC memoranda: RFC 2045, RFC 2046, RFC 2047, RFC 4288, RFC 4289 and
RFC 2049, which together define the specifications.

3.1 Versions

• Version 1.2 added forms and object support.

• Version 1.1 added full scripting supports intended to be used with ECMAScript Mobile Profile.
• Version 1.0 extended XHTML Basic 1.0 with certain presentation elements and basic scripting support.

3.2 Supported Modules

Modules included in XHTML-MP 1.2 are:
• Structure
• Texts
• Hypertext
• List
• Forms
• Basic Tables
• Image
• Object
• Metainformation
• Scripting
• Style Sheet
• Style Attribute
• Link
• Base

XHTML-MP 1.2 also includes partial support for Presentation, Intrinsic Events and Legacy. Also this version
includes an OMA-specific module ("Text Input Modes") for dealing with the various input modes allowed on mobile
phones.

4. Development pitfalls

Many problems arise when content written in XHTML is shown on different devices. For example, some devices
will honour colors specified in CSS, while other devices will not. Building an adaptive application means delivering
different content to different devices, according to their capabilities. This can bring huge complexity, given the
number of different devices in the market with different hardware (screen-sizes, colouring capacity, buttons,
memory and speed) and browsers. Software updates on mobile browsers are much more difficult than with
desktop browsers, and as a result broken software tends to stay in use until the phone is discarded.

Many software initiatives attempt to solve this problem. Most of these initiatives provide a proprietary language to
write WAP content, which will render different content (XHTML-MP, WML, CHTML, etc) according to the
requesting device. One free initiative is WURFL, which uses a hierarchical XML configuration file mapping
hundreds of device capabilities. WURFL also uses a "Wireless Abstraction Layer", called WALL, which specifies
special tags that are automatically converted into a markup language supported by the device. The W3C DDWG
has created a specification to standardize access to repositories of device capability information, to be part of a
common framework for content adaptation technologies.

5. Conclusion

Out come of this study on the application of WAP for Internet content and services to wireless devices spots out
the time of the release of the first version of WAP, there was great optimism about the use of wireless Internet.
Over the last several years, WAP has suffered from numerous problems, including: inaccurate user perceptions
about the look and feel of wireless Internet; low data rates; lack of stellar applications and content; and hype
surrounding security issues.
WAP is referred to as a global standard for bringing Internet content and services to wireless devices. WAP's
solution for delivering Web content to bandwidth-limited cell phones is a complete infrastructure that integrates
devices, servers, languages and protocols, WAP is also bound to flourish in other parts of the world once packet-
switching networks are able to provide the all important "always on" connectivity. As third-generation (3G) wireless
technologies are to deliver the required low bandwidth to support a user experience. Now Fourth-generation (4G)
wireless technologies are to deliver the required higher bandwidth to support a broadband network. WAP is poised
to be adopted by many in the days to come and to become a very critical application delivering technology in the
fast emerging wireless world. The new generation which was implemented in the year 2008?
The greatest advantage brought by XHTML MP is that developers can now use the same technologies for the

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development of both web sites and WAP sites. This benefits WAP application development in the following ways:

• If you are familiar with web technologies such as HTML, XHTML, and CSS, you can start developing your
WAP site almost immediately. If you are new to the above web technologies and now you learn XHTML
MP, you learn at the same time how to write mark-up code for the web.

• The same development tools can be used to develop both web sites and WAP sites. You can stick to
your web development tools to build your mobile Internet browsing application. This result in a lower
development cost (no need to buy new development tools) and a lower time investment (no need to learn
new development tools).

• Ordinary web browsers can be used to view your WAP site during the development process. (You should
test your WAP site with emulators and real mobile phones before the final release, since the
characteristics [e.g. screen size, number of colors supported] of real mobile devices vary considerably.)

• HTML / XHTML pages on your web site can be converted to XHTML MP documents with minor changes
or even without any changes. However, you have to make sure that the layout of the HTML / XHTML
pages looks nicely on a small screen and that the file size does not exceed the maximum page size of
your targeted mobile devices. It becomes easier to find a developer to join your mobile Internet
application development team, since there are plenty of web developers on the job market.

Following are the other advantages of XHTML MP:

• XHTML MP supports WAP CSS, which enables the separation of content and presentation in different
files. As you all know, mobile devices have very different characteristics such as screen sizes. The
separation of the content and the presentation means you can write the content once, and change the
style and layout to suit different mobile devices with various WAP CSS files.

• With XHTML MP and WAP CSS, you have more control over the presentation. For example, you can
control borders, backgrounds, margins, padding, etc. You can also specify the font sizes, font families
and font colors. Such features are not available in WML 1.x.

References:

1. OMA: The WAP 2.0 conformance release

2. The HCI blog: A brief History of WAP
3. OMA: Frequently Asked Questions
4. WAP Forum: WAP 1.0 Specification Suite
5. WAP Forum: WAP 1.1 Specification Suite
6. WAP Forum: WAP 1.2.1 conformance release
7. The Wireless FAQ: What is the difference between WAP 1.1 and WAP 1.2?
8. MX Telecom: WAP Push
9. hdeveloper.openwave.com/docs/wappush_tech_overview.pdf Openwave: WAP Push
Technology Overview]
10. Will Wap´s call go unanswered? vnunet.com, 2 June 2000
11. Silicon.com: BT Cellnet rapped over 'misleading' WAP ads Published 3 November 2000,
retrieved 17 September 2008
12. http://press.nokia.com/PR/199902/777256_5.html Nokia 7110 Press Release
13. http://www.filibeto.org/mobile/firmware.html Nokia 7110 first public firmware revision date
14. The Globe and Mail: "Survivor's guide to wireless wonkery", 23 September 2005
15. IT Web: "A RIVR runs through it", 14 November 2000
16. Builder.au 2004/08/10: UK WAP usage doubles in 12 months
17. IMCR: NTT DoCoMo Inc.: Leadership Position in Japanese Mobile Market under Threat?

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Retrieved 17 September 2008

18. U.S. Federal Communications Commission."FCC Revises 700 MHz Rules To Advance
Interoperable Public Safety Communications And Promote Wireless Broadband Deployment",
July 31, 2007. Accessed October 8, 2007.
19. Wired News: Gopher: Underground Technology
20. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XHTML_Mobile_Profile
21. Users.jyu.fi/.../xhtml-mp/OMA-XHTMLMP-V1_2-20041222-D.pdf

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