WAP

(1) (Wireless Access Point) See access point.

(2) (Wireless Application Protocol) A standard for providing cellular phones, pagers and other handheld devices with secure access to e-mail and text-based Web pages. Introduced in 1997 by Phone.com (later Openwave Systems), Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia, WAP provides a complete environment for wireless applications that includes a wireless counterpart of TCP/IP and a framework for telephony integration such as call control and phone book access.

WAP features the Wireless Markup Language (WML), which was derived from Phone.com's HDML and is a streamlined version of HTML for small screen displays. It also uses WMLScript, a compact JavaScript-like language that runs in limited memory. Supporting both keypad and voice recognition, WAP is independent of the air interface and runs over all major wireless networks. It is also device independent, requiring only a minimum functionality in the unit so that it can be used with a myriad of phones and handheld devices. See WTLS, OMA, HDML and i-Mode. See also wired access point.

No Information Overload Here

Due to the small screen real estate, WAP-based applications get right to the point, because they cannot afford to waste your time with unnecessary "eye candy." WAP-based phones may provide a welcome relief from the information overload on most Web home pages. (Image courtesy of Openwave Systems Inc.)

A WAP Gateway

This diagram depicts Openwave's Mobile Access Gateway which encodes and decodes WAP pages between the microbrowser in the smartphone and the Web server.

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WAP - Wireless Application Protocol