WAP is an open international standard for applications that use wireless
communication. Its principal application is to enable access to the Internet
from a mobile phone or PDA.
A WAP browser is to provide all of the basic services of a computer based web
browser but simplified to operate within the restrictions of a mobile phone. WAP
is now the protocol used for the majority of the world's mobile internet sites,
known as WAP sites. The Japanese i-mode system is currently the only other major
competing wireless data protocol.
Mobile internet sites, or 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
* music downloads