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Re: IP over MIME (was Re: WAP Is A Trap -- Reject WAP)

2000-06-21 14:30:03
WAP might evolve into something more useful, but I don't see
how it will replace IP in any sense.

One is an architecture for supporting application on diverse wireless
systems, and other is a network layer packet transport mechanism. Two
aren't even comparable.

the two are comperable in that WAP applications compete with 
traditional Internet applications, and people will sometimes
have to choose between "native Internet" and WAP as a means
of running their application (or support both)

WAP as it currently exists isn't a solution
to any future problem - it is a solution to the problem of how to
build a consumer information service over SMS and cell phones
with limited displays.

No. It is a solution of how to support meaningful applications over a
wireless channel with *limited bandwidth*, 

sure, but SMS was the limiting case on the bandwidth side.  were it
not for the need to support SMS it would have made a lot more sense to 
just use IP. (though not necessarily to use traditional IP transports or 
applications on top of it - but that would have at least been possible 
for those who were willing to suffer the expense/delay.)

display size might not have been a fundamental design constraint
of WAP's lower layers, but WAP applications are certainly designed 
to cope with limited display size, and the limitations of cellphone 
displays are often used as a justification for using WAP instead 
of IP based applications.

See above. The size of display isn't the issue. Contrary to what you
say, most people who work in cellular industry think that WAP is very
interesting piece of work given the limitations of the systems that
are *widely deployed and used today*.

today, perhaps.  tomorrow is different.

As far as wireless industry is concerned, the die is already cast -
WAP, BlueTooth and UMTS are three future technologies.

an industry that believes its own marketing propaganda is quite often wrong.

Keith