Wireless Application Protocol Overview

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Wireless Application ProtocolOverview
WAP Forum

• Owen Sullivan
• Worldzap

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Agenda

• Development of WAP
• Protocol Layers
• Wireless Application Environment
• Security and Smart Cards
• Convergence with IETF protocols

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State of industry in 1997

• Technologies were in use to allow handheld mobile
  devices access to network based content, but were
  incompatible
• Smart Messaging HDML, Narrowband sockets, Others
  ...
• WAP Forum was created to provide a single global
  standard for wireless data access for all
  handheld mobile devices

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Initial goals of the WAP Forum

• Bring Internet based content services to
  handheld wireless devices
• Work across global network technologies
• Allow creation of content that works across many
  types of link layers and device types
• To use existing standards wherever possible

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What devices is WAP designed for?

• Includes mobile phones, pagers, PDAs
• Devices with limited CPU, memory battery life
• Devices with a simple user interface
• Low bandwidth high latency environments
• Unpredictable availability stability

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High level view of WAP Architecture
Web Server
CGI, Java servlets, etc
WML content or HTML content that gets translated
HTTP
WSP/WTP
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Link layer technologies supported by WAP

• GSM SMS, Circuit Switched Data, GPRS, USSD, Cell
  Broadcast
• ANSI-136 R-Data, Circuit Switched Data,
  GPRS-136
• CDMA SMS, Circuit Switched Data, Packet
• PDC PHS Circuit Switched Data, Packet
• CDPD DECT TETRA Mobitex
• FLEX and ReFLEX DataTAC

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WAP Protocols
Circuit Switched Data
Flex
CDPD
SMS
USSD
GPRS
Etc..
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Wireless Datagram Protocol

• Provides a network and bearer independent
  interface to higher layers
• Provides port level addressing
• Provides segmentation and reassembly
• For link layers that support IP, UDP is used as
  the Wireless Datagram Protocol layer

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Wireless Transaction Protocol

• Provides efficient, reliable data transfer based
  on request/reply paradigm
• Supports selective-retransmission
• Supports segmentation and re-assembly
• Message oriented (not stream)
• Supports an Abort function
• Supports concatenation of PDUs

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Wireless Session Protocol

• Provides shared state between client and server
  used to optimize content transfer
• Provides semantics and mechanisms based on HTTP
  1.1
• Supports compact encoding of headers
• Supports push functionality
• Supports capability negotiation

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Standard Message Center Adaptation Protocol
WAP Proxy/Server
Mobile
WAE
WAE
WSP
WSP
Message Center
WTP
WTP
WTLS
WTLS
WDP
WDP
Non-IP bearer (e.g. SMS)
Non-IP bearer (e.g. SMS)
WDP Adaptation
WDP Adaptation
TCP
TCP
IP
IP
WDP Adaptation utilises SMPP, industry standard
for Message Center access
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WAP application environment

• WML- XML compliant mark-up language
• WMLScript - ECMAScript based scripting language
• WAP Push mechanism
• User Agent profiles
• WTA - WAP telephony services

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WML Example
ltWMLgt ltCARDgt ltDO TYPEACCEPTgt ltGO
URLeCard/gt lt/DO Welcome! lt/CARDgt
ltCARD NAMEeCardgt ltDO TYPEACCEPTgt
ltGO URL/submit?N(N)S(S)/gt lt/DOgt
Enter name ltINPUT KEYN/gt Choose speed
ltSELECT KEYSgt ltOPTION
VALUE0gtFastlt/OPTIONgt ltOPTION
VALUE1gtSlowlt/OPTIONgt ltSELECTgt
lt/CARDgt lt/WMLgt
Deck
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Wireless Telephony Applications
Placing an outgoing call with WTAI
ltWMLgt ltCARDgt ltDO TYPEACCEPTgt ltGO
URLwtaicc/mc(N)/gt lt/DOgt Enter phone
number ltINPUT TYPETEXT KEYN/gt lt/CARDgt lt
/WMLgt
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WMLScript Example
function currencyConvertor(currency, exchRate)
return currencyexchangeRate function
myDay(sunShines) var myDay if
(sunShines) myDay Good else
myDay Not so good
return myDay
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WAP Security

• Transport level security is WTLS, based on TLS.
  Provides privacy, integrity, authentication
• End-to-end security mechanism defined at the
  transport layer
• Application layer security provided via WMLScript
  crypto library

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WAP and Smart Cards

• WAP supports use of Smart Cards to enhance
  security
• Wireless Identity Module specification supports
  performing security functions storage of
  sensitive data
• Smart Card Provisioning specification defines a
  file structure for secure storage of provisioning
  data

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WAPs current status

• WAP Forum has 200 members including
• 90 of worlds handset manufacturers
• Carriers with over 100 million subscribers
• Leading infrastructure providers, software
  developers content providers
• WAP v1.2 specification suite approved Dec 99
• Commercial services now widely deployed

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Changing marketplace

• High speed 2.5G technologies - GPRS, EDGE
• 3G technologies being developed with data rates
  of up to 2Mbps
• Multimedia capable devices being developed
• Demand for richer content - high quality
  graphics, audio, video

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WAP next generation

• WAP Architecture Convergence group working to
  ensure WAPs architecture converges with the IETF
  and other protocols
• WPG reviewing the output from the IETF PILC group
  with a goal of incorporating TCP into the WAP
  stack
• WAP continually evolving to ensure compatibility
  with emerging technologies

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www.wapforum.org
WAP Forum

• Thank you!