Introduction: A global wireless protocol specification to work across heterogeneous wireless network technologies and is a communications standard for digital mobile phones, supported by over 1,200 companies is defined by Wireless application Protocol (WAP). WAP makes it possible for mobile phones to access the Internet and retrieve information on simplified display screens or through a voice interface. WAP phones can receive text and data, including pages downloaded from the World Wide Web, as well as voice using an implementation of WAP. As you can see WAP has many capabilities and due to these capabilities and the amount of new upcoming handsets with features such as built-in cameras, video streaming capabilities and graphics/text integration WAP is well on its way to making a comeback (Armor, 2002).
WAP's Come Back: Enhanced Messaging Services (EMS) combines text and graphics and it uses a WAP browser. Motorola is coming out with a new flat-screen color display phone, which includes a camera as well as an MP3 player, supports MMS and EMS through the WAP 2.0 browser. This has paved the way for WAP to make a quiet comeback even though early WAP browsers were not that great. Many of the handset vendors feel that the current version of WAP gives the technology the capability that it was not able to deliver on in the beginning Nobel, 2002).
Short Message Services (SMS): The transformation from using them as all-purpose data devices that enrich our personal lives through constant communication is already evident in the use of Short message Servicr (SMS) (Nadel, 2002). SMS is a globally accepted wireless service that enables the transmission of alphanumeric messages between mobile subscribers and external systems such as e-mail, paging, and voice-mail systems. SMS provides a mechanism for transmitting short messages to and from wireless devices. The service makes use of a local base station, which acts as a store-and-forward system for short messages.
