Limitations of using WAP
The most visible of these limitations include the following:
i.Low bandwidth (usually 9.6 kbps)
ii.High network latency
iii.Small, mostly monochrome displays
iv.Numeric keypads
v.Slow processors
vi.Limited memory
The four major limitations of wireless application protocol are directly related to the
devices currently being used to use the
application and the capabilities of the mobile networks to provide faster and more efficient WAP
solutions.That is to say that even if WAP is fairly advanced and has great potential to
revolutionize the way people experience interconnectvity, it could not show its optimal strength
because of the existing issues with hand-held devices that transmits and receives WAP
technology.
The Four Major Limitations are:
a) Inability of mobile devices using WAP to transfer large amount of data
b) speed by which WAP is transferred from mobile networks to the devices,
c) the high cost of WAP
d) unusually high cost of upgrade to a WAP device and upgrade WAP content
The main limitations of WAP today are related to the devices used and the mobile networks. The
limiting factors of the device means that large amounts of data, especially graphics and
animations are not recommended. Although, WAP supports images today only black and white
images are possible. Colour Images and Animations will be supported in future releases of WAP.
Other limitations that the user perceives are not really WAP limitations but restrictions due to the
mobile networks. Many users identify that WAP is slow and that it can take up to 2 minutes to
access content Even with todays limitations it is possible to design applications well so that the
best use of the scarce network resources are made. A well designed application can be
accessed via WAP in less than 10 seconds. The cost of using WAP is another disadvantage. The
cost to upgrade to a WAP device and the additional cost to access content has limited WAP very
much to the corporate user rather than the mass market. However, these main limitations of WAP
will soon be only challenges as the Speed of the networks are already increasing with the launch
of GPRS, and in future the Third generation, 3G networks. Hopefully, GPRS will also address the
Cost issue of WAP and bring down the cost of using WAP. This is promised as the user will be
always connected but will only pay for the usage of sending / receiving data.
Design Challenges
The application developer needs to consider the following three areas of limitations when
designing applications for WAP.
Network Challenges
The Bandwidth and Delay factors are the main network restrictions. For the optimisation of the
application using WAP is an advantage, as WAP already takes these limitations into account.
The developer, in addition, can design the application so that data to be sent over the mobile
network is kept to a minimum. In the case of mLearning content, this can be achieved by
structuring the content into useful pieces of information or snapshots. Summary type of
information as opposed to pages and pages of text. Also images and graphics must be kept to a
minimum or avoided as these take up a lot of memory usage on the devices.
Using the WAP design concept of 'Deck of Cards' encourages the developer to redesign the
structure of mobile learning training material. A Card is the amount of data that will be displayed
on the screen of the device, including any scrolling the user may do. A Deck consists of a number
of Cards, that the Device will download from the mobile network. This is used appropriately can
give a very positive user experience as navigating the cards is the deck is very fast, less than a
second as the data is already stored on the device.
Device Challenges
The user interface and the memory and processing power are the main limiting factors of the
device. The developer can overcome these by ensuring that most user interaction is via the
navigation of links. Thus the user can access different modules of the course and related
information via an Index of Links. When the user needs to enter data, this can be handled by the
Select Lists which allows the user to make a selection on a number of options rather than type in
large amounts of data (not recommended for mobile phones).
All of the design principle talked about in the previous section are also relevant, as the
conciseness of information and the 'Deck of Cards' structure will help render the course content
on the small screens of the devices to the user's satisfaction.
The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) was once hailed as the ultimate mobile Internet solution
that would revolutionize how we use the Internet and mobile phones. Although WAP is available
on a variety of wireless mobile networks, such as those employing
Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) IS-95
Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) IS-136
International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT-2000)
Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS)
Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA), in addition to GSM/GPRS.
Majority of WAP users are corporations and large business entities. Only a small fraction of the
users are individuals. This is brought about by the fact that wireless application protocol is still too
expensive to use given current technologies available in the market. In addition to that, doing an
equipment upgrade on WAP devices and WAP networks are very expensive at present that one
could easily see that the new technology brought about by WAP will be coming to an end unless
something will be done about the cost related to the use and upgrade of WAP-enabled devices.
Thus said, people would rather use short messaging technology or 3G technology than opt for
WAP because of the former applications’ affordability. In other words, the potential of WAP to
revolutionize the internet experience of users is yet to be exploited and this would not happen
unless the preliminary concerns are addressed and the technology associated with the
application can be modified and perfected.
Modern day mobile phones have limitations that disable its ability to optimize
WAP features and the advantages of using WAP. Among the many limitations of modern
day mobile devices are low bandwidth, high network latency, mobile devices’ limited
memory, small and usually monochrome display, slow processing capability, and
numeric keypads. Pooling these limitations together and introducing the wireless
application protocol in the picture, one could easily expect to see graphics and animations
not playing comfortably with WAP-enabled mobile devices, so videos and animations
obtained from an internet source would not display very well on the handheld devices.
The second issues are related to the first constraint because of the rate of the data transfer
and the quality with which data are transferred in WAP-enabled devices. Slower transfer
rate means lower user satisfaction.
Majority of WAP users are corporations and large business entities. Only a small
fraction of the users are individuals. This is brought about by the fact that wireless
application protocol is still too expensive to use given current technologies available in
the market. In addition to that, doing an equipment upgrade on WAP devices and WAP
networks are very expensive at present that one could easily see that the new technology
brought about by WAP will be coming to an end unless something will be done about the
cost related to the use and upgrade of WAP-enabled devices. Thus said, people would
rather use short messaging technology or 3G technology than opt for WAP because of the
former applications’ affordability. In other words, the potential of WAP to revolutionize
the internet experience of users is yet to be exploited and this would not happen unless
the preliminary concerns are addressed and the technology associated with the
application can be modified and perfected.
and the SAGE. E-mail: [email protected]
Danielyan, Edgar. 2008. WAP: Broken Promise or Wrong Expectations? CISCO. TheInternet Protocol Journal. Volume 6 Number 2. Accessed fromhttp://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac123/ac147/archived_issues/ipj_6-2/wap.html
Landers, Paul. 2002. The Advantages and disadvantages of using WAP in developing anmLearning course. Accessed fromhttp://learning.ericsson.net/mlearning2/project_one/wap_article.html