Summary

• The most popular wireless data applications are messagingservices. These originated in GSM, but have spread to other technologies. They provide a very limited form of email.

• The wireless Web lags far behind the fixed Internet in terms of both the data rates achievable and the power of devices used to access it.

• All existing techniques for presenting data on mobile devices miss out on some of the Web's most popular features, such as color and multimedia.

• There are two competing open standards for wireless sites: Compact HTML and WAP. Compact HTML was developed by Web designers, WAP by mobile phone manufacturers.

• WAP is a complete stack of protocols, not just a markup language. But it has a significant and perhaps deliberate security flaw, which gives mobile ISPs the ability to see encrypted information.