What is WAP?

[Guest doughick]

OK, I have tricked out on my smartphone - I can create and modify my own .XML - I have it set so that I can use it to connect my laptop to the internet wiehn I am on the road. I can play movies and mp3s - I have updated the firmware multiple times. I figured out how to email pictures and have my email set up to pick up my comcast emails - ...

But there is something that I don't get - what is WAP.

When I go to dataconnections - I have

WAP connection:

Secure WAP connection

WAP Proxy

Secure WAP Proxy

and each of those have options under them - for example

WAP Proxy is set for PDA connect (that was the default) - what does this and the other settings do?

Phone is an MPX220 with Cingular, if it makes any difference and "Internet" is set to Automatic"

Thanks!

[Guest TheBadger]

WAP stands for Wireless Application Protocol (I think), it was what phones first used to get (limited) access to the web. I'm not sure whether GPRS is an extension of this or something different, but most phones use GPRS to connect to the web now (again, I'm not sure though).

[Guest Twain]

Thebadger is right with what wap stands for, its basically just another type of protocol for wireless transmission. gprs is general packet radio service which again is another type of protocol really but its faster and you pay by the amount you download not by how long you are viewing it for. Meaning you can download a page and once you have it you can view it for as long as you wanted with no worries of charge.

gprs has pretty much superseded wap but manufacturers will always allow backwards compatibility i guess

[Guest scott2eyes]

That's pretty much covered it.

The most significant difference between WAP and GPRS is that WAP uses the phone line, while GPRS works in parallel. So when you've got a WAP session open, you're paying by the minute. GPRS, on the other hand, only sends and receives data when it actually needs to, which means that unlike WAP, you don't have a load of wasted bandwidth from connections that aren't actually sending or receiving data.

Basically, think of WAP as dial-up internet and GPRS as mobile broadband.

[Guest OG]

That's pretty much covered it.

The most significant difference between WAP and GPRS is that WAP uses the phone line, while GPRS works in parallel. So when you've got a WAP session open, you're paying by the minute. GPRS, on the other hand, only sends and receives data when it actually needs to, which means that unlike WAP, you don't have a load of wasted bandwidth from connections that aren't actually sending or receiving data.

Basically, think of WAP as dial-up internet and GPRS as mobile broadband.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi,

Not quite, since you can connect to WAP using a dial up number OR GPRS.

WAP pages are programmed in WML and WAP is the protocol used to display your WML pages in your phone browser (it's an application communication protocol used to access services and information on handheld/mobiles), wherereas GPRS is the protocol used to transfer the information on the network (like TCP/IP on a pc).

Cheers

[Guest Matt Kirby]

Another analogy:

WAP is like HTTP -it is the protocol (or language) used to send the data.

WML is like HTML -it is the strucuture for the data itself (such as webpages).

GRPS is like ADSL -it is the physical connection to cary the data.

As someone said before, you can use WAP over GPRS - since WAP is independent of the physical connection.

When WAP first started the only mobile data connection available was CSD (Circuit Switched Data, which is charged by the second regardless of the ammount of data transmitted in that time), when people talk about old WAP phones they are actually refering to CSD.

Confusing, isn't it?

[Guest Geeklord]

WAP was a precursor of mobile browsing. it was a step between 2g and 3g phones. I guess the phone manufacturers and programmers didn't want to wait that long before releasing an "internent capable" moblie phone. Then came GPRS with which you can view almost any website provided you have access to it. in contrast, not all sites have wap sites or wsp://wap.yahoo.com (wap counterpart of http://www.yahoo.com). wap technology was simply eclipsed by the hi-fi and lo-fi version of websites. but some sites still maintain their wap sites because not everyone owns a GPRS phone.

[Guest Confucious]

@Geekloord - see Matt Kirbys reply for the correct answer.

WAP can be used over GPRS - just because you have GPRS doesn't mean you can access internet sites. Matt explaioned the differnces quite well/

[Guest Geeklord]

Sorry, I guess I got in over my head.