WAP is designed in a layered fashion, so that it can be extensible, flexible, and

scalable. As a result, the WAP protocol stack is divided into five layers −

Layers of WAP Protocol

Application Layer
Wireless Application Environment (WAE). This layer is of most interest to
content developers because it contains among other things, device specifications,
and the content development programming languages, WML, and WMLScript.

Session Layer

Wireless Session Protocol (WSP). Unlike HTTP, WSP has been designed by the
WAP Forum to provide fast connection suspension and reconnection.

Transaction Layer

Wireless Transaction Protocol (WTP). The WTP runs on top of a datagram

service, such as User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and is part of the standard suite
of TCP/IP protocols used to provide a simplified protocol suitable for low
bandwidth wireless stations.

Security Layer

Wireless Transport Layer Security (WTLS). WTLS incorporates security

features that are based upon the established Transport Layer Security (TLS)
protocol standard. It includes data integrity checks, privacy, service denial, and
authentication services.

Transport Layer

Wireless Datagram Protocol (WDP). The WDP allows WAP to be bearer-

independent by adapting the transport layer of the underlying bearer. The WDP
presents a consistent data format to the higher layers of the WAP protocol stack,
thereby offering the advantage of bearer independence to application developers.
Each of these layers provides a well-defined interface to the layer above it. This
means that the internal workings of any layer are transparent or invisible to the
layers above it. The layered architecture allows other applications and services
to utilise the features provided by the WAP-stack as well. This makes it possible
to use the WAP-stack for services and applications that currently are not
specified by WAP.
The WAP protocol architecture is shown below alongside a typical Internet
Protocol stack.

Note that the mobile network bearers in the lower part of the figure above are
not part of the WAP protocol stack.
Wireless Application Environment (WAE), the uppermost layer in the WAP
stack, provides an environment that enables a wide range of applications to be
used on the wireless devices. We have earlier discussed about the WAP WAE
programming model. In this chapter, we will focus on the various components
of WAE.

Components of WAE

Addressing Model

A syntax suitable for naming resources stored on servers. WAP use the same
addressing model as the one used on the Internet that is Uniform Resource
Locators (URL).

Wireless Markup Language (WML)

A lightweight markup language designed to meet the constraints of a wireless

environment with low bandwidth and small handheld devices. The Wireless
Markup Language is WAP's analogy to HTML used on the WWW. WML is
based on the Extensible Markup Language (XML).

WMLScript

A lightweight scripting language. WMLScript is based on ECMAScript, the

same scripting language that JavaScript is based on. It can be used for enhancing
services written in WML in the way that it to some extent adds intelligence to
the services; for example, procedural logic, loops, conditional expressions, and
computational functions.

FEATURES OF WAP

A programming model similar to the Internet's

Though WAP is a new technology, but it reuse the concepts found on the
Internet. This reuse enables a quick introduction of WAP-based services, since
both service developers and manufacturers are familiar with these concepts
today.

Wireless Markup Language (WML)

You must be using HTML language to develop your web-based application.

Same way, WML is a markup language used for authoring WAP services,
fulfilling the same purpose as HTML does on the Web. In contrast to HTML,
WML is designed to fit small handheld devices.

WMLScript

Once again, you must be using Java Script or VB script to enhance the
functionality of your web applications. Same way, WMLScript can be used to
enhance the functionality of a service, just as Java script can be utilized in
HTML. It makes it possible to add procedural logic and computational functions
to WAPbased services.

Wireless Telephony Application Interface (WTAI)

The WTAI is an application framework for telephony services. WTAI user

agents are able to make calls and edit the phone book by calling special
WMLScript functions or by accessing special URLs. If one writes WML decks
containing names of people and their phone numbers, you may add them to your
phone book or call them right away just by clicking the appropriate hyperlink on
the screen.

Optimized protocol stack

The protocols used in WAP are based on well-known Internet protocols, such
as HTTP and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), but they have been
optimized to address the constraints of a wireless environment, such as low
bandwidth and high latency.
WDP SERVICE PRIMITIVES
The primitive types and their abbreviations are listed the table below.

Type Abbreviation Description

Request req Used when a higher level requests a service from a lower leve

Used to notify the next higher layer of activities to the peer (s

Indication Ind invocation request) or to the provider of the service (such as a
generated event)

A layer uses the response to acknowledge receipt of indicatio

Response Res
the next lower layer.

The layer providing the requested service uses confirm to rep

Confirm Cnf
successfully completion of the activity.
What is Difference b/w Wired & Wireless Network?
The following table denotes & explain the difference in both wired and wireless
network –

PARAMETER WIRED WIRELESS

Communication Copper, Fiber etc. Air

Medium

Standard IEEE 802.3 802.11 family

Mobility and Roaming Limited Higher

Security High Lower than Wired. Also easy to ha

Speed / Bandwidth High Speed upto 1 Gbps Lower speed than Wired Network.

Access to Network Physical Access Required Proximity Required

PARAMETER WIRED WIRELESS

Delay Low High

Reliability High Lower than Wired

Flexibility to change Less flexible to changes More flexible configuration

Working principle CSMA/CD, operates by CSMA/CA , hence reduces

detecting the occurrence of a possibility of collision be avoiding
collision. collision from happening

Interference and Very Less High

Fluctuations
vulnerability

Installation activity Cumbersome and manpower Less labor intensive and easy
intensive

Installation Time Takes longer time to perform Very less deployment time

Dedicated / Shared Dedicated Shared

Connection

Installation Cost High Low

Maintenance (Upgrade) High Low

cost

Related equipment Router, Switch , Hub Wireless Router, Access Point

Benefits * Greater Speed * No Hassles of Cable

* Higher noise immunity * Best for mobile devices
* Highly reliable * Greater mobility
* Greater Security * Easy installation and manageme
 Wireless Datagram Protocol (WDP)

Wireless Datagram Protocol

• Provides a network and bearer independent interface to higher layers

• Provides port level addressing

• Provides segmentation and reassembly

• For link layers that support IP, UDP is used as the Wireless
Datagram Protocol layer

Wireless Datagram Protocol, also known as WDP, provides a consistent service

to the upper layers (security, transaction, and session) of the WAP architecture.

It is defined in the OMA WAP-259-WDP-20010614-a specification, and allows

applications to operate transparently over different available bearer services.
It communicates transparently over the different bearer services supported by
multiple network types. WDP is a connection-less, unreliable datagram service.
It supports port number addressing. The port number points to the higher-layer
level of WDP.
This can be WTP, WTLS, WSP, or an application.

In order to support the different bearer services with its specific capabilities and
characteristics, an adaptation is required to keep WDP as a common layer for
the various bearer services. Therefore, WDP, with its type of adaptation layer,
cooperates with its underlying bearer layer.
General WDP architecture
WDP messages are sent by the WAP terminal to the wireless data gateway
using the bearer services. The wireless data gateway has the choice to pass
WDP packets on to the WAP proxy/server through a tunneling protocol, which
is the interface between the gateway that provides bearer service and the WAP
proxy server.

For example, if the bearer service was an GSM SMS, the gateway would be a
GSM SMSC and would support a specific tunneling protocol to interface the
SMSC to other servers. It is also possible to use a subnetwork as a common
technology in order to connect two communication devices. This connection
can be, for example, through a wide area network based on TCP/IP or frame
relay, or a LAN operating TCP/IP over Ethernet.

The WAP proxy/server might offer application content or might operate as

gateway between the wireless WTP protocols and the wired Internet.

When used over an IP network layer, UDP is used instead of WDP.

Wireless transaction protocol (WTP)

• The wireless transaction protocol (WTP) is on top of either WDP or, if security
is required, WTLS .
• WTP has been designed to run on very thin clients, such as mobile phones.
• WTP offers several advantages to higher layers, including an improved
reliability over datagram services, improved efficiency over connection-
oriented services, and support for transaction-oriented services such as web
browsing. In this context, a transaction is defined as a request with its
response, e.g. for a web page.
• WTP offers many features to the higher layers. The basis is formed from three
classes of transaction service as explained in the following paragraphs.
• Class 0 provides unreliable message transfer without any result message.
• Classes 1 and 2 provide reliable message transfer, class 1 without, class 2 with,
exactly one reliable result message (the typical request/response case).
• WTP achieves reliability using duplicate removal, retransmission,
acknowledgements and unique transaction identifiers.
• No WTP-class requires any connection set-up or tear-down phase. This avoids
unnecessary overhead on the communication link.
• WTP allows for asynchronous transactions, abort of transactions,
concatenation of messages, and can report success or failure of reliable
messages (e.g., a server cannot handle the request). To be consistent with the
specification, in the following the term initiator is used for a WTP entity
initiating a transaction (aka client), and the term responder for the WTP entity
responding to a transaction (aka server). The three service primitives offered
by WTP are TR-Invoke to initiate a new transaction, TR-Result to send back
the result of a previously initiated transaction, and TR-Abort to abort an
existing transaction. The PDUs exchanged between two WTP entities for
normal transactions are the invoke PDU, ack PDU, and result PDU.

A special feature of WTP is its ability to provide a user acknowledgement or,

alternatively, an automatic acknowledgement by the WTP entity. If user
acknowledgement is required, a WTP user has to confirm every message received
by a WTP entity. A user acknowledgement provides a stronger version of a
confirmed service because it guarantees that the response comes from the user of
the WTP and not the WTP entity itself. WTP class 0 Class 0 offers an unreliable
transaction service without a result message. The transaction is stateless and
cannot be aborted. The service is requested with the TR-Invoke.req primitive as
shown in Figure 10.14. Parameters are the source address (SA), source port (SP),
destination address (DA), destination port (DP) as already explained in section
10.3.2. Additionally, with the A flag the user of this service can determine, if the
responder WTP entity should generate an acknowledgement or if a user
acknowledgement should be used. The WTP layer will transmit the user data
(UD) transparently to its destination. The class type C indicates here class 0.
Finally, the transaction handle H provides a simple index to uniquely identify the
transaction and is an alias for the tuple (SA, SP, DA, DP), i.e., a socket pair, with
only local significance.

The WTP entity at the initiator sends an invoke PDU which the responder
receives. The WTP entity at the responder then generates a TR-Invoke.ind
primitive with the same parameters as on the initiators side, except for which is
now the local handle for the transaction on the responders side. In this class, the
responder does not acknowledge the message and the initiator does not perform
any retransmission. Although this resembles a simple datagram service, it is
recommended to use WDP if only a datagram service is required. WTP class 0
augments the transaction service with a simple datagram like service for
occasional use by higher layers.

WTP class 1 Class 1 offers a reliable transaction service but without

a result message. Again, the initiator sends an invoke PDU after a TR-Invoke.req
from a higher layer.

This time, class equals „1, and no user acknowledgement has been selected as
shown in Figure 10.15. The responder signals the incoming invoke PDU via the
TR-Invoke.ind primitive to the higher layer and acknowledges automatically
without user intervention. The specification also allows the user on the responders
side to acknowledge, but this acknowledgement is not required. For the initiator
the transaction ends with the reception of the acknowledgement. The responder
keeps the transaction state for some time to be able to retransmit the
acknowledgement if it receives the same invoke PDU again indicating a loss of
the acknowledgement.
 If a user of the WTP class 1 service on the initiators side requests a user
acknowledgement on the responders side, the sequence diagram looks like
Figure. Now the WTP entity on the responders side does not send an
acknowledgement automatically, but waits for the TR-Invoke.res service
primitive from the user. This service primitive must have the appropriate local
handle H for identification of the right transaction. The WTP entity can now send
the ack PDU. Typical uses for this transaction class are reliable push services.