WAP's primary objective is to provide an open standard for optimised access via a mobile device to the Internet or intranet. When first introduced, WAP was touted as a revolutionary technology that would totally transform the world of mobile computing. But WAP and WAP-based services couldn't completely facilitate such transformation due to limitations of mobile devices and mobile networks, such as:

• Small screens
• Limited device memory
• Less powerful CPUs
• Limited bandwidth availability
• Unreliable connections
• High latency

However, there are changes on the horizon for WAP in the form of WAP 2.0. In this article, I will give an overview of WAP and how it uses WML to display content. I will also explain how WAP 2.0 improves on 1.x's features, but why you might need to continue using the 1.x standards for now. How WAP works
When accessing a Web site from a browser on a desktop PC, the client requests data and the server sends that data in the form of HTML over an IP network. The Web browser translates the HTML data into viewable text and graphics. On your mobile device, WAP replaces a Web browser with a WAP browser, which can also request data from a Web site. The major difference between how you access the data via a browser on your PC and a WAP 1.x browser is that the WAP browser requires a WAP gateway. This gateway functions as an intermediary between the mobile and Internet networks. When placed between a WAP browser and a Web server, it takes care of the necessary binary encoding of content and can also translate WML to/from HTML. Why you should use WAP
Despite initial concerns about mobile limitations, there are many good reasons to use WAP to implement mobile Web browsing.

• WAP has its own security model that works on lines very similar to Web security. Hashing algorithms, digital certificates, and public key cryptography provide the critical security required for any real transactions using WAP.
• WAP development is pretty simplistic. WML and WMLScript provide for almost everything that a mobile Internet application would need. The learning curve for WML or WMLScript isn't very steep; most programmers can pick it up rather quickly.
• WAP is widely accepted. Major players in the wireless market (like Nokia, Motorola, and Ericsson) are all very active participants in the WAP process.
• WAP is standard independent. So even a switch to a GPRS network wouldn't really make a difference when browsing. Only better data transfer speeds would contribute to a better browsing experience.