A running joke dogging the Wireless Application Protocol industry is that its initials, WAP, stand for “Where are the phones?”
Applying that to the messaging industry, desperate to be included in the wireless Internet game, the question may be asked, “Where are the pagers?”
All discussions surrounding WAP and its capabilities have largely remained centered on the technology’s benefits for the wireless-phone market. Rarely has reference been made publicly about adding WAP to paging devices and networks.
“There’s a common belief that WAP is a phone standard,” said Iain Gillott, vice president of worldwide consumer and small business telecom at IDC. “But it’s starting to creep into the handheld area. A lot of people forget it’s a wireless application protocol for wireless devices, and that includes pagers. But we haven’t seen any WAP pagers yet.”
Gillott knocked the paging industry for letting the mobile-phone carriers and manufacturers dominate the WAP spotlight. “When you think WAP, you don’t think pagers. It’s up to the paging industry to change that. They shouldn’t have let that happen.”
Much of this can be blamed on the fact that pagers don’t need WAP to get Internet content. Several information aggregators offer Internet content solutions to paging devices that resemble WAP services. But users only may access the particular content choices offered by the aggregator. WAP would allow users to visit the WAP destinations of their choice.
Essentially the argument is this: WAP is an application standard that optimizes Internet content for small screens, like those on pagers. The paging industry is placing its survival on the hope its devices will become viewed as wireless Internet access devices. Since WAP is the current standard by which Internet content is read on wireless devices, the paging industry should leverage it.
By embracing WAP, analysts say, the paging industry eliminates the distinction between ReFLEX networks and cellular and personal communications services networks in terms of data delivery. Since the paging industry is trying to lose the stigma of being paging, allowing messaging devices to access the same content available on cellular and PCS Web phones eliminates a reason to choose one over the other.
“I think pager carriers think they’re doing fine with what they’re doing now, like e-mail. It transmits low packets of data,” said Cynthia Hswe of The Strategis Group. “But in order to compete in a third-generation environment, they’ve got to offer something more.”
Paging industry interest in WAP differs depending on who is talking. Ed Baker, chairman and chief executive officer of Arch Communications Group Inc., is a member of the WAP Forum and believes strongly in WAP’s potential on paging networks.
“I think WAP will play a constructive role in bringing wireless content to wireless devices, whether that’s smart phones or interactive devices,” he said. “I do believe WAP will be a very important protocol in the immediate near term because it’s a universally accepted bridge for content providers and network operators on an agnostic basis. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel; We need to embrace WAP.”
He said Arch will install WAP servers in its network and expects to offer WAP-enabled pagers, perhaps as soon as year-end 2000.
Research In Motion Ltd. recently integrated a WAP microbrowser from Neomar Inc. created specifically for its interactive messaging devices and BlackBerry wireless e-mail solution. Motient Corp., formerly American Mobile Satellite Corp., is offering RIM pagers with the Neomar microbrowser for its eLink wireless e-mail service.
But other carriers are slower to jump on the bandwagon. John Beletic, chairman and CEO of WebLink Wireless Inc., said his company will stick with a non-WAP solution that offers the same capability as WAP.
“Users couldn’t care less about the protocol behind it,” Beletic said. “WAP to me sounds a lot like surfing … You’ll get the same information on our personal communicators whether it’s WAP or not.”
According to Russell Villemez, WebLink chief information officer, the information people will want on messaging devices will not be WAP-type applications commonly promoted on wireless phones, such as restaurant reviews and flight status information.
“I don’t believe consumers will browse the Web with a pager,” he said. “They’ll browse the Web with their phone.”
Instead, he said pagers will be used more for accessing business information residing on a corporate database. As such, it matters little to WebLink that many content providers are writing to WAP because WebLink doesn’t intend to provide that type of content.
“The Internet is no longer a collection of Web sites written in HTML. It is a business-to-business transmission mechanism. We’re trying to solve a different problem,” Villemez explained. “When you want to issue a stock order or update a trouble ticket, you need a pager. You need something that has a keyboard, something that has transmission integrity, so you know the message got there.”
But IDC’s Gillott argues the paging industry needs to embrace WAP if it wants to be associated with the wireless Internet revolution, regardless of the type of content paging carriers intend to offer. He said WAP is riding a wave of popularity, which the financially struggling paging carriers should jump on to raise awareness of the wireless Internet capabilities of their new networks, as well as drum up support on Wall Street.
“Paging valuations would be much benefited by this. They need a shot in the arm. It’s critical,” said Gillott. “The major driver is that you have a whole Internet industry that is jumping behind the WAP standard and if you want to be a part of that wireless Internet space, you can’t afford to use another protocol or standard because these content guys aren’t going to do it twice. Wireless access to the Internet today means WAP.”
Also, he said the wireless Internet experience on a pager will be better if the device supports WAP. More content providers support WAP, he said, which would give paging carriers a greater range of services to offer, allowing consumers to decide whether they want business documents or restaurant reviews on their devices. Given the relatively inexpensive cost of implementing WAP, Gillott said it can’t hurt to support it.
For their part, paging manufacturers have adopted a wait-and-see approach to the WAP question.
“There’s no reason we can’t support it. But there’s no market pull for it because these services are available on today’s infrastructure,” said Eric Doggett, chief executive officer of Glenayre Technologies Inc., a WAP Forum member. “Our current two-way paging infrastructure has had all the services people want access to for some time … The bulk of the e-mail access and transaction services are available on devices today.”
But he did not rule out WAP devices for the future, especially once future versions of WAP can support push-based applications.
“For our next-generation device, we will have location technology embedded and WAP is being considered as a possibility,” Doggett said. “We want to make sure it has full push and pull capability.”
Doggett said to expect WAP in pagers by the first quarter of 2001.
Mike Pellon, senior vice president and general manager of Motorola Inc.’s Personal Communications Services sector, also questioned the demand for WAP.
“WAP is one in a series of technologies which is in the toolbox available for us to draw on. As to marrying it to different products, that depends on what the carrier and the consumer wants,” he said.
Essentially, Motorola is evaluating how WAP and ReFLEX technologies would fit together, but has no solid plans one way or another.
“We believe WAP will play a role, but exactly how it will be integrated will depend on the consumer.
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