Typical use of the WAP protocol involves a website transmitting scaled-down versions of normal web pages specifically optimized for use by wireless telecommunications devices. When used with Wireless Markup Language (WML), for example, hyperlinks can be accessed by the numbers 0 through 9 in addition to assigned hotkeys on a user"s phone.

WAP is a recognized IEEE standard, proposed and developed by a group called the WAP Forum. The protocol is based on existing Internet standards such as HTML, XML, and TCP/IP. WAP is designed to operate over many wireless networks, such as TDMA, CDMA, GSM, and iDEN. Planners are confident WAP will also operate over future 3G networks, although the popularity of WAP in a less-constrained bandwidth environment remains to be seen.

Given the prevalence of cellular telephone use in urbanized areas, WAP will most likely be combined with GPS and other location-aware technologies in the future. This allows a website to offer customized time-based and location-based services of specific interest to a user, with minimal effort on the user"s part.

Services provided by WAP are widely accepted by users in the United States, Western Europe, and other populations across the globe.

The WAP protocol family mirrors the layered OSI stack, and like the OSI stack some layers are not mandatory. At the lowest level, the WAP Datagram Protocol (WDP) moves information from receiver to sender and is modeled after UDP as a least effort method of delivery. On top of WDP sits the WAP Transaction Protocol (WTP) which ensures that the data fragments sent over the line are actually received, through typical ACK/NACK communication. Higher up, the WAP Session Protocol (WSP) handles the session between communicating systems. All sessions are granted unique IDs and are started/stopped/terminated accordingly.

WAP Architecture and Reference Model

WAP: Wireless Application Protocol and WAP Architecture