A Brief History of Mobile Internet

 

At the end of last century (1999), there was a promising Internet development in the field of mobile telecommunications. This development has become known as WAP (Wireless Application Protocol). In addition to mobile telephone conversations (voice), mobile telecom providers also introduced WAP services. WAP was seen as the definitive protocol for receiving Internet data on a cell phone.

 

While WAP was introduced with great enthusiasm, this introduction proved unsuccessful. Actually, that’s being kind – in reality, the introduction was a disaster for WAP. Too many promises were made that could not be kept, no WAP phones were available, WAP was expensive to use, the medium only had a black and white screen, there were no graphical facilities and it was dogged by operational faults. People were accustomed to 'regular' Internet with its graphical design and colors, and they had been led to expect this level of functionality from mobile Internet too.

 

Unwired Webs Enters the Fray

During this period (1999), Unwired Webs started to specialize in applications on cell phones. We soon became aware of the diversity of phones on the market, and of the corresponding diversity in browsers and screen sizes. These developments were the basis for the W-builder. The W-builder was designed to make a single application accessible for all phones (and all browsers) that were introduced on the market. This enabled organizations to develop a single version of an application and display it on all available phone models.

 

An SMS component was later added to the W-builder, enabling data traffic by SMS messaging as well as by WAP.

 

Although WAP was not the success that had been hoped for, Unwired Webs was able to use this period to lay the foundation for the specialized knowledge it now has with regard to mobile data traffic, mobile networks and mobile applications. In addition, the development of the W-builder laid the basis for the X-builder, a platform which supports the latest generation of mobile data traffic.

Current generation

 

Older WAP applications can be compared to DOS applications on the first PCs: monochrome screens and no graphical functions. After the DOS era came the first versions of Windows and with them the introduction of color and a graphical user interface.

 

This development is now being repeated in the field of mobile telephony with the introduction of several operator portals and applications. These developments offer the added value promised but not delivered during the WAP period.

These “new generation” communication tools have larger screens that support color and graphical functions. Users perceive this as very user friendly and it offers a number of unprecedented applications. In addition, the actual communication uses a new kind of network: GPRS/UMTS/HSDPA and 1X or EVDO. GPRS/UMTS/HSDPA is the successor of data traffic over GSM. 1X / EVDO is the CDMA version of a network for faster data traffic.