Written by: Peter Arnby, Johan Hjelm and Peter Stark

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Web services adapted to the wireless environment have been a tremendous success, especially in Japan, where more than 25 million people use i-mode. However, the architecture of i-mode has some limitations. These will be overcome with WAP 2.x.

In this article, the authors describe WAP 2.x, the universal wireless application environment. They explain the similarities and differences between the WAP 1.x and WAP 2.x architectures, and depict conceptual components and features of the second-generation architecture. These components—the application environment, protocol framework, security services, and service discovery—are key to successful application and service development. Modularity, an important feature of the second- generation architecture, enables developers to select modules from different components and to create user services that fulfill market demands.

[First published in Ericsson Review no. 04, 2001]