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TOWARDS CONVERGENCE: SUPER WAP
Operators, vendors and content providers
are leaping onto the WAP bandwagon and
hype is turning into happening. Services
are being launched and the pack is
currently headed by serious m-commerce
applications and mobile e-mail, says Bob
Emmerson.
High-tech breakthroughs that catch the
imagination of the media tend to be
over-hyped, and at times misinterpreted.
Recall that voice over the Net did not wipe
out the traditional carriers; neither did
network computers destroy Wintel's desktop
hegemony. Nevertheless, VoIP and NCs
were important developments, and with the
benefit of 20:20 hindsight it is easy to see
what went wrong with the interpretation. So
how important is WAP?
The media certainly went overboard on this one at Telecom 99 and US journalists woke
up to the fact that a significant wireless technology gap exists over both the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans. Ironically, WAP will help them catch up, since the new information
services that this standard facilitates will run over any bearer network. But is this really
going to be the next big thing in cellular telephony - and if it is, what are the killer
services/applications?
Instant access to information on planes and trains, restaurants and hotels, parking places,
cinemas, sports results and so on will doubtless prove useful to consumers once the price
of next-generation smart phones comes down to high-street levels. However, that will take
time - two years according to some industry observers. Subscribers will not trade up until
the services they want are available and developers may wait until the big numbers
appear. It's a classic chicken and egg scenario.
There will inevitably be a broad, horizontal consumer market for information services, but
in the near-term the business community will be the early adopters - they will be the
driving force behind this development. Mobile e-mail can be seen as a killer application.
Calls made to a mobile reach people, not places, so it is logical to extend the concept to
e-mail.
MOBILE COMMERCE
The hype surrounding e-commerce could hardly be wider or louder, so it's easy to
overlook the fact that WAP-compliant mobile devices will be used in the near-term in
order to conduct secure financial transactions. And these applications are emerging at the
same time as this article is being written. There are over 400 million handsets in
operation and this figure is set to reach one billion by around 2003, so smart phones will
clearly become the terminal of choice for mobile commerce.
Because some transactions involve confidential information, or are legally binding,
security is of paramount importance. Reliable identification of transacting parties, as well
as data integrity, must be guaranteed at all times. Finnish operator Sonera's SmartTrust,
for example, is converging on solutions that combine Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)
technology - which uses certificates - with third-party certification authorities, asymmetric
encryption and digital signatures.
PKI is widely tipped as the security technology of choice for e-commerce.
According to Datamonitor the market share of this technology will more than triple for the
period 1999-2003, growing from five to 17 per cent.
Ericsson and Sonera SmartTrust demonstrated security solutions for mobile commerce at
Telecom 99. This was shown on Ericsson's R320 - the world's first WAP phone to be
qualified for secure communications as provided by digital signatures.
WAP SERVICES
Sonera was the first operator in the world to launch a WAP service. The announcement
was made on 31 August 1999, several months before availability of WAP-compliant
phones. This was followed by a joint statement with Nokia about the development of
WAP-based picture messaging, and then by the launch of a global WAP/SMS directory
for mobiles.
The first application is in mobile commerce (m-commerce) and it's called the 'GSM
Chocolate Service'. This is a pilot service that should do well at Christmas and Easter.
Subscribers can order, send and pay for Fazer Sininen, which is a famous (in Finland)
170g bar of chocolate. It is ordered by phone and sent to the recipient together with a
greeting. The purchase is billed on the mobile phone invoice.
More serious and significant are the financial services being announced.
Trema, an international organisation headquartered in Stockholm, bases its business on
an integrated treasury, risk and asset management system used by investment
management firms, central banks (including the European Central Bank) and Fortune 500
corporations such as ABB, British Aerospace, Ericsson, Johnson Controls, Volvo and
Unilever. Serious stuff.
Together with Nokia, Trema has developed a mobile application known as Finance
mKIT, which enables 24 x 365 access from any WAP-compliant device.
It is said to be the first of many mobile and WAP-based applications in the corporate and
financial sectors.
Another financial service, in this case a WAP brokerage solution, has been developed by
iNFORM and Materna. This will enable owners of WAP-capable mobile phones to buy
and sell shares, check the status of their securities portfolio and call up charts and news.
With the ability to address customers directly, the new solution also has the potential to
function as an alternative sales channel for banks and savings banks.
WHERE ARE THE PDAS?
The financial services that are being introduced do not involve talking to anybody, so the
concept is just as valid for a WAP-compliant PDA as a phone. Moreover, these devices
have bigger screens and more memory, which makes them better suited to serious
transactions, such as buying and selling shares or making large payments while on the
move. However, to date the only WAP devices that have been announced are mobile
phones.
Moving your millions around while on the move may seem somewhat far-fetched, but
banks are anticipating this requirement and developing totally secure systems to enable
corporate customers to do just that. Nor is the idea limited to the more venturesome
Scandinavians. Swiss GSM operator diAx is planning a service and so is Deutsche Bank.
INTELLIGENT TELEPHONY
The industry is currently heading down two convergent tracks. One is WAP and the idea of
never leaving the house or office without a smart phone or wireless PDA. The other is
mobile IP, which is set to take off around 2001, when GPRS services come on stream.
IP over GPRS will enable seamless integration of data with the emerging
mega-bandwidth IP networks; voice will have to wait until we get 3G networks, which will
employ packet-switched wireless voice. However, the introduction of Intelligent Network
(IN) functionality into the wireline IP environments would open up many new possibilities
in the near term.
In principle this could be done using the existing (PSTN) IN, but the functionality is
limited, development times are long, and many vendors have bypassed the standard, so
today's IN no longer represents a truly open environment. Sonera's approach to this issue
is typically bold: write new IN code in Java for the new IP environment. The new IN
enables rapid development of applications, since programmers can call on virtually any
telephony function they need - for example, locality dependent calls, end user
reachability services, routeing according to week day and time and time-based temporary
routes. In addition, there is support for external directories, both corporate and public.
This new technology is based on industry standards, such as H.323. Sonera has also
developed its own gatekeeper, which routes calls both in the Internet and telephone
networks. This is the platform for the IP based IN services.
WAP AND THE NEW IN
The services and applications of the new IP infrastructures will be accessed and managed
via a browser. Thus tomorrow's telephony will have the look and feel of the World Wide
Web. Smart phones employ a Lite browser, which means that WAP is the mobile
equivalent of the Web. It is therefore logical to combine WAP and Intelligent Networking
within all IP environments and allow both WAP and Web applications to run on the same
servers.
This is yet another innovation that has been developed in Finland. Sonera's new WAP-IN
applications mean easy access to the management of intelligent VoIP services as well as
the management of other applications based on this platform, such as conferencing, fax,
e-mail and various directory services. The applications include service management and
dynamic user profile management and registration.
The WAP phones are clearly morphing into personal communications and wireless
information devices. The idea vendors such as Ericsson and Nokia are trying to implant is
that users wouldn't want to leave home or the office without them. These devices would
be used to check up on the weather and traffic conditions and short-range Bluetooth links
would facilitate payments at petrol stations and checkouts.
By the time this happens - and it seems only a question of time - the percentage
penetration in most industrialised countries will be near those that already exist in
Scandinavia - 50 per cent and higher. Then the market will start to question the value of
a phone tethered to the desktop.
Unless there is a huge legacy hardware investment in PBXs and wireline phones,
solutions that enable mobiles to be used for inter- and intra-office communications will
become the preferred way of working.
Most of the talk at the moment focuses on fixed-mobile convergence, but for SMEs and
corporate departments whose staffs are out of the office most of the time, the business
case for wireless Centrex will become increasingly attractive. These solutions have been
trialed in Finland and were demonstrated at CeBIT 99. By the time CeBIT rolls
inexorably around this year you should be seeing wireless Centrex on WAP phones
having wireline PBX features combined with computer telephony apps like call centres.
And you also get VPN functionality thrown in for free (see sidebar 'VPN functionality').
NO LIMITS
WAP is a key, enabling standard. Indeed, in a couple of years we may decide that it was
the key standard that brought everything together: phone vendors, suppliers of networking
kit, content providers, and heavy hitters from the computing industry.
The market for mobile data has always been there, but thin client devices having lite
browsers can now access Internet and intranet/extranet hosts - in other words, end-to-end
applications are finally arriving. Moreover, when the GPRS packet-switched services are
up and running, probably some time next year, all those apps will be IP from end to end.
By then we should have Bluetooth and higher data rates - and who knows what else?
VPN FUNCTIONALITY
In Abacus Solutions' Mobicentrex Mobile calls can go direct to the equivalent of a
switchboard operator and are transferred using "extension number".
Internal calls are made by dialling the number. Calls can also be made to the extension
or a fax machine. All calls made within the operator's network are treated as internal. No
prefix is needed: the network knows the phone's identity and recognises the service to
which it belongs. This means VPN functionality is an intrinsic part of the solution.
Teleworkers can be part of the private numbering scheme; moves and changes are
irrelevant, as are new employees and locations. Mobicentrex can be used as a fixed
mobile converging solution or a total mobility solution. In a fixed mobile solution there is
a PBX to which mobile extensions are logically connected.
In a total mobility solution only mobile phones use the service. Users are given
'once-and-for-all-time' numbers. Terminals and 'real numbers' can change, but staff can
be reached at all times using their personal number. When absent, calls can be directed
to voice mail or the operator.
MOBILE E-MAIL
This service can be provided via SMS, but the functionality is limited and the interface is
somewhat clumsy. With a lite browser interface, however, it is much easier to read, reply,
forward and even create e-mail messages.
Overload of e-mail alerts on the mobile can be avoided using triggers and filters; these
are normally based on the identity of the sender and the subject. This allows users to
define which e-mails are forwarded and which are left on the desktop mailbox.
Salespeople, for example, could set filters so that all e-mails from customers and
prospects are forwarded to their mobile and the rest are not. Routine office
correspondence stays in the office. Thus, smart phones will become thin client devices
that work in a client-server 'data' mode. In this case the link is wireless, but the principle is
the same as that of tethered NCs. |
