The Wireless Access Protocol Forum has published the first version of a wireless communication specification which it hopes will accelerate the use of cellular phones and other wireless devices to access the Internet and advanced telephony services.
The WAP Forum -- which includes founders Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia and Unwired Planet -- hopes to establish the specification as an industry standard.
Such a standard would offer potential economies of scale, encouraging cellular phone and other device manufacturers to invest in developing compatible products, the group said in a statement.
WAP version 1.0 works with most major network types including GSM (Global Systems for Mobile Communications) and CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), and was developed with input from the group's 40 or so members.
The specifications are a set of 19 documents defining the overall WAP architecture. They include, according to the WAP Forum's statement:
-- a Wireless Application Environment, which defines the wireless markup language, script language, and wireless telephony application interface;
-- a transport layer that includes support for Datagram Protocol, Transaction Protocol, Control Message Protocol, and Transport Layer Security;
-- and a Wireless Session Protocol specification that enables both connection-mode and connectionless services.
All of the documents can be found at the WAP Forum Web site, at http://www.wapforum.org/docs/technical.htm/.
More information about the WAP Forum can be found on the Web at http://www.wapforum.org/.