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HANOVER, Germany (AFP) - Mobile phone operators are feverishly promoting new models that allow Internet access from headphones, which they are counting on to give a new lift to sales.
WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) is the watchword at the CeBIT computer fair in the German city of Hanover. Even though services are far from ready, the latest mobile phone war has started.
Nearly every manufacturer is showing WAP technology that was first unveiled a year ago. Motorola has six WAP models on display, including one using the future GPRS high-speed transmission system. The US giant estimates that by 2003 more than half of all Internet connections will be made through mobile phones.
Telecommunications and website groups are convinced that online commerce will see a new boom once the public is sold on the idea of easy access to inter-active sales on their portable telephone or personal organizer.
First, though, they must overcome the problem of adapting web content to mobile phones. At the moment few services are accessible. Difficulties are expected to continue even after the new UMTS norm enters service in 2002, drastically increasing transmission capacity.
Using WAP technology, the user's command is transmitted to a WAP portal, which translates the information for web servers that are currently in the HTML format.
The answer is translated back into WAP for the portable phone. But the services offered, such as train timetables, weather forecasts and town maps, are less powerful than those consulted with a personal computer.
To make WAP more attractive, manufacturers are introducing gimmicks such as voice recognition. Some at CeBIT are also offering ways to produce websites with a portable.
There are a growing number of alliances targeting the WAP market. Online bookseller Amazon.com and Sports.com have linked up with Motorola. Dutch multi-national Philips has gone into partnership with Saraide.com of the United States to produce WAP data for its Xenium telephones.
The new generation of portable phones has also given impetus to huge deals like the merger between Vodafone Airtouch of Britain and German conglomerate Mannesmann, which will particularly target multi-access portals.
Experts say that the major maneuvers in the industry are not over. "Portals set up by each company will certainly have to be opened up to other groups otherwise consumers may just leave their supplier when they discover better services," said Justin Chamberlain, development director for Ericsson.
Services are likely to remain basic this year, said industry experts, but companies are now devoting huge resources to WAP as demand grows. WAP already allows users to access e-mails, company directories and linked up diaries.
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