In the UK today there are over 25 million Mobile Internet enabled handsets. WAP page impression (PI) figures compiled on behalf of GSM Network operators O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone, show that they are continuing on a steady rise. October figures show them hitting 897m. This takes the daily average to 29m, compared to 11m a day in October 2002. WAP page impressions are expected to top 8bn by the end of the year (source: Mobile Data Association). Tech Byte written by Pamir Gelenbe, co-founder of Flytxt

So WAP certainly appears to be crawling back from the depths to which it plummeted after its spectacularly over-hyped launch. WAP is no longer 'Crap'. But what exactly is it and why are we now calling it the Mobile Internet?

One of the first mistakes that operators made when WAP launched was to describe it as a technology instead of the value it could bring to consumers. You might actually be using the mobile internet today yourself, or at least know someone who is, without even being aware of it. WAP is no longer called WAP, its called Vodafone Live! Orange World, o2 Active and T-Zones. Because of the bad press WAP received when it originally launched and because 'WAP' doesn't actually mean anything to mobile users, operators have cleverly repackaged the old technology and presented it in a more consumer focused and consumer friendly way. Advertising campaigns involving celebrities like David Beckham, the face of Vodafone Live!, have seriously fooled the consumer from ever guessing that it is the same technology behind the service.

So are people actually using these types of services and is it just the operators that provide them? Some operators' services involve pulling data from the mobile internet. For example, sports results, planning a map route, finding the location of your nearest bar or cinema, looking up train times etc. The Mobile Data Association recently found that the most popular sites are those offering downloadable games. Sports and news sites are also popular, and games, horoscopes, live sports & Time Out listings are gradually rising in popularity. One of the real money-spinners for content providers at the moment is, unsurprisingly adult. Adult is commonly found to be the driver of any new technology, and it hasn't disappointed content providers on this count. A 2003 report from Strategy Analytics suggests that the market for mobile adult-orientated services could be worth $1bn (£596m) by 2008.

So, other than consumers wanting to access adult content via the mobile, what is the reason behind this sudden spurt in growth of mobile internet page impressions? One is the fact that the majority of people today are accessing it via GPRS (General packet radio system) instead of via a dial-up connection. What's special about GPRS is that it allows an 'always on' connection, so you don't have to wait during a 40 second dial up session, and it provides a much quicker connection than before. Another reason is that more of the handsets that consumers are using to access the mobile internet have a colour screen, providing a richer and more enjoyable consumer experience.

Connecting to the mobile internet via GPRS enables 'packets' of information to be downloaded. While the majority of European subscribers access the mobile internet via GPRS, at a rate of approximately 30kbps (kilo-bites per second), some subscribers in Asia get a much better deal, connecting via EDGE technology at 80kbps. Interestingly, o2 has recently released its first EDGE handset in the UK. The arrival of 3G will see rates move up to 300 kbps.

The charges that consumers pay for browsing the mobile internet vary, depending on which mobile operator you subscribe to. Some charge for connection on a per minute basis, others charge according to the number of kilobytes of data downloaded. Premium content such as route maps etc. are also sometimes charged for through one-off payments.

Other features the mobile internet offers are:

·  Clickable links through to additional content

·  The ability to tick boxes on forms

·  Automated capture of mobile numbers

·  Personalised content and charging for content via reverse-billed SMS

·  Video streaming and downloads

·  Java application downloads

The key challenge facing content providers wanting to use the mobile internet as a communication channel is content rendering: the adaptation of content to the plethora of handsets available on the market today. If we compare this problem to the Internet, we can understand the enormity of the problem. In the early days of the Internet, there were two competing browsers to access the web which meant that website designers had to ensure their websites were compatible with both Microsoft Explorer and Netscape Navigator. Today, Microsoft Explorer is the most dominant player in the market, making it straightforward for designers. With WAP, designers are faced with no less than 50 different handsets that they have to render their content on. The process by which content is rendered correctly, according to the type of handset the subscriber has, is similar to a virtual handshake of information. When the consumer is making a request for information to the server where content is stored, such as footie scores for example, the phone submits its model identifier, called a 'user-agent' tag, that reveals the type of phone.

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