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Rally to WAP says GSM Association[February
7th 2001] The CEO of the GSM Association, Robert Conway, has issued a rallying
call for WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) technology and predicted a brighter
future for the service. Speaking
at a meeting of the WAP Forum's Plenary Meeting in London this week Conway
backed the protocol to grow and evolve, pointing toward industry forecasts for
Europe, that 100 million WAP enabled terminals will be in the market by end
2001*, and many more worldwide. "Some
lessons have been learnt," said Conway, "and more need to be absorbed,
but with the introduction of packet switched, 'always on' GPRS services by as
many as 30 GSM networks to date, with many more to come in the next few months,
WAP's future as a browser on faster bearers has never been brighter." Conway
feels that WAP suffered from being 'over-hyped' during its 3 year gestation in
standards work through to the time of its competitive launch early last year. Nevertheless,
the twin successes of the text message facility on GSM phones and the i-mode
data explosion in Japan, convinces Conway that, with expected enhancement in the
number and quality of terminals and applications, WAP can grow significantly. To
that end, Conway is urging close cooperation between application developers,
vendors and carriers, the WAP Forum and the GSM Association. "From
a slow start, some 15 Billion text messages are now being sent every month on
GSM WAP enabled phones have helped this," he explained. " The i-mode
service in Japan has reached 18 million active users by January 2001, barely
after two years from launch - that's one in 7 Japanese people using the service.
These facts prove that the market exists for mobile data services tailored for
the wireless user." "Make it simple, make it quick, and make it
everywhere and you have the recipe for success," he added. To
further enhance the WAP experience to end users, Conway has called upon the WAP
community to share the benefits of cooperative standardisation and seamless
global roaming. Both, he said, were
inherent in the worldwide success of the GSM wireless system, which has been
adopted by more than 436 operators in 162 countries. "You
must standardise the protocol at all critical levels," he said.
"From the browsers to the gateways, from the applications to the
services, you must make the user experience simple and seamless. "Location
based services, Mobile Commerce personal preference schemes and instant access
to information will all play important parts," said Conway, "but the
real catalyst for the re-birth of WAP is GPRS; a seamless, global standard for
packet based data switching on GSM networks." GPRS is
a core member of the GSM family (including GSM, GPRS, EDGE, and 3GSM) and is a
critical step towards the evolution of one global 3G wireless standard in the
wireless world. Conway
highlights industry predictions pointing to hundreds of millions of GPRS data
users over the next few years, and feels that WAP as it evolves has the chance
to become the protocol of choice for the GPRS platform. "WAP
could and should be the winner in this market," he said. "But the secret lies with minimising the hype and
maximising the effort on cooperative standardisation. "It
could be seen as crazy (to try) to
cram the desktop PC on to the mobile phone screen," concludes Conway.
"Instead, we should be partnering to attract customers, by playing
to the intimacy, immediacy and mobility of theglobal wireless environment."
About
the GSM Association The
GSM Association is the world's leading wireless industry representative body,
consisting of more than 514 second and third generation GSM network operators
and key manufacturers & suppliers to the GSM industry. Membershipof the
Association spans 162 countries (and areas) of the world.The GSM Association is
responsible for the (development), deployment and evolution of the GSM family of
technologies (GSM, GPRS, EDGE and 3GSM) for digital wireless communications. The
Association's members provide digital GSM wireless services to more than 435
million customers. The GSM system accounts for approximately 70 percent of the
total digital wireless market. *
Dataquest projects 100 million WAP enabled terminals for Europe alone by end
2001. *
GPRS - General Packet Radio Services |
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