WAP - Key Benefits
The following sections outline how various groups may gain from WAP −
Subscribers
It is crucial that the subscribers benefit from using WAP based services. The key benefits
can be summarized as −
Portability
Easy to use
Access to a wide variety of services on a competitive market
The possibility of having personalised services
Fast, convenient, and efficient access to services
To fulfil as many customers needs as possible, WAP devices will be available in various form factors, e.g. pagers, handheld PCs, and phones
Operators
Many of the advantages mentioned under "Service Providers" are be applicable to operators as well. The operator's benefits may include −
Address new market segments of mobile users by enabling a wider range of mobile VAS.
Deploy telephony services that in contrast to traditional telephony services are easy to create, update, and personalise
Use the flexibility of WAP as a tool to differentiate from competitors
Attractive interface to services will increase usage
Increased revenues per user due to higher network utilisation
Convenient service creation and maintenance including short time-to-market
Replace expensive customer care centres with WAP based services (E-care)
WAP services are designed to be independent of the network, implying that an operator who runs different types of networks only have to develop its services ones
An open standard means that equipment will be provided by many manufacturers
Service Providers
WAP opens new possibilities for service and content providers since they not necessarily
have to come to an agreement with a specific operator about providing services to their customers. For example, the gains are −
Create a service once, make it accessible on a broad range of wireless networks
Address new market segments by launching innovative mobile VAS. Keep old customers by adapting existing Internet services to WAP
Keep old customers by adapting existing Internet services to WAP
Convenient service creation and maintenance
Creating a WAP service is no harder than creating an Internet service today since WML and WMLScript are based on well-known Internet technology
Use standard tools like ASP or CGI to generate content dynamically
Utilise existing investments in databases, etc that are the basis of existing Internet services
Manufacturers
Mobile devices supporting WAP will be available in many different form factors, e.g.,
cellular phones, pagers, and handheld PCs. Hardware manufacturers will also need to supply operators with equipment such as WAP Gateway/Proxys and WTA servers. Manufacturers benefit in the following ways −
WAP scales across a broad range of mobile networks, meaning that WAP implementations can be used in devices supporting different types of networks.
The expected wide adoption of WAP implies that economies of scales can be achieved, meaning that the huge mass-market can be addressed
The fact that WAP is designed to consume minimal amount of memory, and that the use of proxy technology relieves the CPU, means that inexpensive components can be used in the handsets
Reuse the deep knowledge about wireless network infrastructure to develop advanced servers that seamlessly integrates mobile VAS with telephony
Seize the opportunity to introduce new innovative products
Tools Providers
Today, we have a number of tools available for creating applications for the web. Content
developers have become accustomed to the convenience that tools like FrontPage and DreamWeaver provides. Tools providers will be able to −
