WAPster Rap: Get Out Word
By Brad Smith
SAN FRANCISCO—Scott Goldman is getting tired of hearing and reading stories that “WAP is dead.” So tired, in fact, he’s
vowed to become more aggressive in getting the message out about the long life he expects for the newborn technology.
Goldman, CEO of the Wireless Application Protocol Forum, started that effort last week at the Unwired Universe 2000
conference, which drew 1,500 people who will be sorely disappointed if WAP dies. The show, nearly double last year’s size,
turned away nearly 1,000 developers and others who wanted to get in on the action.
Some of the bullet points from Goldman’s speech include the assertions that WAP has been adopted by so many major companies
and developers that an overwhelming momentum is behind the protocol.
Since January, he says, the number of WAP developers has risen from 30,000 to 300,000, the forum membership has grown from
250 to 550, the number of WAP models shipping has climbed from three to 17, and the number of WAP Web sites has exploded
from 240 to 24,000. There are 139 carriers with 200 million subscribers who either have launched WAP or are testing it.
WAP’s 300,000 developers are nearly six times the number for the Palm Inc. platform, considered one of the most successful
technological launches and one that precedes WAP by several years, Goldman says. In addition, WAP has been accepted by 95
percent of the world’s handset manufacturers, carriers with more than 200 million subscribers and major Internet and wireless
infrastructure providers.
There was other evidence at the show, sponsored by WAP pioneer Phone.com Inc., that the wireless Internet is being accepted in
the marketplace. AT&T Wireless Services, which re-launched its PocketNet service last spring, had more than 80,000 subscribers
by June 30 and “thousands” more using its cellular digital packet network via the new OmniSky service. The latter uses the Palm
V and a Minstrel modem.
AWS Vice President Thomas Trinneer says those numbers are a little better than the carrier had anticipated. He declined to
specify numbers for actual usage of PocketNet because more time is needed, but described it as active.
Kent Thexton, managing director of British Telecom’s Global Mobile Internet sector, said the carrier has gained 175,000
subscribers for its WAP service since it was launched in April.
Also, the Japanese CDMA carrier IDO/DDI has 2 million subscribers for its WAP service, according to Ben Linder, a
Phone.com vice president. The IDO/DDI numbers, however, are much lower than the 7 million users for the rival proprietary
i-Mode service from NTT DoCoMo.
On the handset side, Japan’s Hitachi Ltd. showed off a slick phone that has a color screen and an updated microbrowser from
Phone.com The phone, due to ship in Japan in a few weeks and later in the United States, has a more intuitive graphical interface
than any current model.
Even though the audience at the Unwired Universe show wants to see WAP succeed, it wasn’t a complete love fest. There was
grumbling among some of the developers that not enough handsets are available for design purposes, that they must design for
multiple interfaces, that the protocol needs refinement and that developer’s kits don’t always work the way they should.
Goldman, unabashed by the critics, says WAP is in an evolutionary path that will take it into the era of higher bandwidth 3G
networks. WAP’s spectral efficiencies will still be needed because coming networks may provide 384 kilobits per second data
rates, but that commonly will be shared among many users, so the effective rate will be much less.
If Goldman is right, WAP may yet grow up. |
