WAP & WBMP Info

What is WAP?

In a context of the mobile phones and neverending improvement of services of the mobile networks is often told about mobile access to the Internet. Mobile devices have considerably limited possibilities in comparison with common PC, color monitor and internet browser. It is not necessary to emphasize the fact that it means little display with limited visual skills, difficult using of a keyboard and low baud rate. And just for the resolving of these limitations was developed the technology WAP.

Wireless Application Protocol, the full name of this standard, was developed by association WAP Forum, which is also taking care about its next improvements. For detailed technical aspects of WAP see "More useful resources about WAP". For the simplification you can accept declaration that WAP is based on the similar principles as the common Internet.

Several important differences is necessary to mention. While common WWW pages use HTML language for their definition, WAP pages use WML language. These languages are similar else but common HTML pages cannot be displayed on the mobile phone.

A little distasteful fact is that not every phone is able to use WAP. More exactly - mobile phone must be WAP enabled. Today these phones are for example Nokia 7110, Motorola Timeport P7389, Ericsson R320, Siemens C35/S35/M35 etc.

It was already mentioned that WAP is not able to display common WWW pages. It means that every content provider must prepare both HTML and WML version of its pages if wants to offer also access from mobile phone to users.

More useful resources about WAP

WAP Forum is the association of the chief world telecommunications producers and other companies and it looks after the standardization and diffusion of all the technological things bearring on WAP. On its web pages it is possible to find the specification of WML language or other specifications of WAP principles in the most exact form.

Answers to the questions put by users who meet WAP for the first time are offered by Option WAP-FAQ.

Basic informations about WAP you can find also on pages of WebProForum. By its on-line test you can also check your knowledge about mobile access to the Internet.

If you are already interested in the development of WAP pages and you are currently solving some problem you can usefully visit The Wireless FAQ. Answers to the concrete possible problems of developers are situated just there. Common users can find some useful informations there too.

WAP School is the right school for beginner and also for advanced WAP pages developer. It shows begins of WAP development and also concrete examples in step-by-step form.

If you are active WAP developer and you are also interested in creation of dynamic pages then you should visit WAP for Java developers. You can find basic informations about WAP application development by Java servlets and JSP there.

Daily news about the last technological achievements in WAP area and new services in WAP you can find on the next most popular servers:

WapSight.com


anywhereyougo.com


WAPuSeek.com


theFeature.com

Discussion groups about WAP

One of the greatest information resource are usually electronic discussion groups where developers as good as common users can commute their experiences and opinions. The biggest and the most popular discussions about WAP you usually find on servers of the telecommunications producers and servers of other companies interested in WAP.

forum.Nokia.com


developer.Phone.com


allNetDevices.com


The most of them requires a filling of a form for the registration of your username and password. This registration is free of charge. Thanks to it you will obtain an access to the free software e.g. WAP browsers or development tools.

WBMP

WBMP (Wireless Bitmap) is the format adapted for grafic data displayed on WAP devices: one-bit (white-black) version of BMP format.

While you are using WBMP it is neccessary to know that displays of WAP devices are very differential and limited. As the demonstration of these differencies you can consider this table comparing several best known types of WAP enabled mobile phones:
  Nokia 7110 Ericsson R320 Ericsson R380 UP.Browser
Horizontal pixels

95

101

304

variable
Vertical pixels

45

52

98

variable
Max. card size

1 397

3 000

3 800

1 492
Max. WBMP size

1 397

3 000

3 800

1 492

UP.Browser is very wide-spread in a lot of phone types of a lot of producers. Therefore the size of display is different at each one of device types.

In addition not every WAP device is able to display graphical pictures. Therefore it is necessary to use the function alt in tag <img> for displaying textual replacement of the picture.