…What would be the mobile side behavior when a network initiated USSD request is followed by a release message from the network?

For example, network (MSC/HLR/VLR) sends a USSD request to the MS, requesting for some details from the mobile. Assume that the request is displayed in a texual form at the mobile’s screen. Before the mobile user can enter his input and send it to the network, the network releases the USSD transaction by sending a RELEASE COMPLETE message.

Now, what will be the mobile side behaviour. Will the RELEASE cancel/remove the text displayed at the mobile handset screen. Or will the user still be able to enter his input in response to the request and send it to the network (this obviously will be an invalid response as the transaction has already been cleared by the network)

================

Do you know the answer? Three of us attempted an answer. If you want to know what, read below.

I wrote:
I hope you are not building a service based on this scenario — there are too many unknowns.

First of all, yes, you can abort the USSD session (MAP-U-ABORT). Most likely, the initial session will be just hanging on the screen of the cell phone. If answered, there can be various scenarios depending on the particular phone model, but most likely there will be nothing happening. You can test this by requesting a USSD dialog and not answering it and thus it will be canceled by time-out. See what happens on you phone.

On the other hand, if you DO want to erase the old session from the screen of the mobile, you can do it by aborting the initial session and sending a new session with some characters (a space?) in it. Most likely, the new session will just substitute the old one.

Hope this helps. We are running USSD services for 100s of millions of subscribers of MTS network in Russia. It is better to design the service in a way that does not require this scenario!

Clarification:
With this scenario, most phones will clear the screen freeze, it seems. My Samsung clears the screen. Sony Ericsson of my friend just freezes.

================

Rahul Kumar (Consultant, Product Management at Six Dee Telecom Solutions)

The initial session text will hang on the screen on most of the cell phone, few might behave differently.
Once the session is closed from network side the session close is also intimated to cell phone, so the user wont be able to reply to it, the cell phone itself will discard and display the default session close message on screen.

================

Graeme Lewis (Telecommunications Projects and Marketing CxO Level Professional with 25 yrs experience)

Vikas, I would agree with Ivan on this. The resulting action on the mobile device can very from handset to handset, testing this on the thousands of different types of handsets is nearly impossible and relying on the manufacturer specifications is just as unreliable. It depends on what data you need from the handset. I ran a project previously we called Sniff. Sniff could determine, based on IEMEI what parameters should be conformed to in order to send the mobile device a pre-formatted MMS. We were taking a still photo from an Axis IP camera on a tower and then MMS’ing it to the handset. Our little application sorted the parameters by matching the IEmei to a database we had built which contained the manufactures specifications. We managed to achieve above 80% reliability, the biggest obstacle was that most data sheets that ship with mobile devices are outdated really fast and finding the exact data you need can take time. I hope this is helpful to you.

================

We also corresponded (that’s why I thought it is a good idea to post this on the blog):

…Based on ur’s responses, I assume that the text will be cleared off from the screen, or at least some indication will be seen on the screen, to indicate of it’s invalidity.
Though this also depends on a particular make of the mobile.
Pls correct me if I am wrong.

Ivan Komarov wrote:
——————–
In general, you are right. If your goal is to clear off the text, send another (you can’t send an empty message, so) “spaced” or info message after you cancel the first one. However, you cannot control the delivery of the initial message and the abort command — they go through different hops and channels, so there can be additional problems, like the initial message is never displayed.

Vikas Agrahari wrote:
——————–
Do any of the specifications mention about a specific handling about such a
scenario. With whatever I searched, I couldn’t come across any.

Ivan Komarov wrote:
——————–
Abort — is defined in MAP-U-ABORT — see, for example below (there are further references in the doc) — free download at

http://qtc.jp/3GPP/Specs/29120-700.pdf

Mobile Money Transfer Explained, Part 2: Mobile Wallets

  February 2008

LONDON, UK — Mobile money transfer is the hottest topic in mobile payments now. Pilot programmes and commercial launches are being announced seemingly on a daily basis. But how do you make MMT work for your organisation? One of the first things you’ll need is a mobile wallet…

In the course of researching MMT 08 – the world’s first independent MMT conference – Steven Clarke, Event Director and Chief Payments Researcher for the Clarion Events Payments Division spoke to hundreds of MMT innovators, and is pleased to share his research in a series of papers. In this edition, we spoke to the leading mWallet vendors.

What is a mobile wallet, and how many are in use? 

Hannes van Rensburg, CEO of Fundamo explains “the term mobile wallet is often misused to mean any store of information allowing financial transactions. This means hundreds of solution providers claim to have a wallet! In my opinion, ‘mobile wallet’ should also designate an associated value store or bank account. The majority of our subscribers don’t have a bank account or credit card. The value store associated with a mobile wallet must conform to banking requirements – it must be auditable, robust, meet different regulatory dispensations, pay interest and manage tiered fees.”

There were an estimated 10 million mobile wallets globally at the end of 2007, representing just 0.5% of the 3 billion phones. Sounds like a low number? It’s actually great news for mWallet developers, given Edgar, Dunn and Company’s prediction that there will be 1.5bn mWallets by 2015, representing an increase to 25% of the total subscriber base

Okay, so who are the mobile wallet vendors and how do they differ? 

If you’re looking for a mobile wallet, your RFP should go out to companies like Affinity Global Services, Bharti Telesoft, FE-Mobile, Fundamo, Macalla, mChek, Mi-Pay, MoreMagic, mTranZact, Paybox, Redknee, Trivnet and Utiba.

While many vendors started out specialising in partnering with either banks or MNOs, CEO Amit Mattatia’s explanation of Trivnet’s market coverage is typical: “Our traditional market was primarily MNOs and Telecom Service Providers, however we have implemented multiple banking integrations and are increasingly teaming up with financial institutions.” mWallet vendors are also enthusiastically supporting MMT within Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), while Todd Achilles, MD at Affinity Mobile, explained that his business also supports “large retailers that offer loyalty and financial services to their customers,” as exemplified by their relationship with RadioShack.

András Vilmos, Director of SEMOPS UAE introduced their service as “grown from a European project with the objective of establishing a European wide real time mobile payment service. Our concept is to set up local services with the involvement of local banks and mobile operators, but as we use the same operating and communication solutions everywhere these local systems can be interconnected, and can become interoperable.”
Andrea Stone, Head of Marketing Communications, Bharti Telesoft added “we are an early innovator, having entered the market in 2006 with our mobiquity platform. Our solution engenders the creation of a viable ecosystem uniting operators, finance institutions and merchants, enabling integration of in-house and 3rd party applications.”

Chief Executive Justin Ho explained that “Utiba has had a pioneering role in mCommerce deployments and Pilots around the world. We implemented GCash for Globe Philippines which was a pioneering mWallet service and which won the GSMA award for Best Mobile Messaging service in 2004. Our Maxis (m-Money) to Globe (G-Cash) remittance initiative is the first mWallet to mWallet international remittance service initiative of its kind anywhere in the world.”

Niall O’Cleirigh, CEO of Macalla spoke of how their “customers range from startups with innovative new business models to large established Banking and Mobile Operator Customers such as Bank of Ireland, Vodafone and O2. We offer customers the choice of hosted or local deployment and all Macalla solutions are provided from one platform, allowing us to deploy multiple services seamlessly.”

Heidrun Kirsch from paybox explained that they have “10 new projects in parallel with 20 solutions deployed globally (Europe, Asia, MENA, Africa, North America). As our references for m-payment standards in Austria and Germany as well as the ecosystem around MoneyBox Africa in Nigeria prove, paybox customers can create mobile communities in both developed and emerging markets.”

Girisch Nair, Group Chief Executive of mTranZact explained how their “technology fundamentally links a mobile phone number to a consumer’s bank account. From a financial regulatory perspective, we require that the custodian of funds is always a regulated financial institution. For consumers that may not have an existing banking relationship, mTranZact enables the issuance of a payment card that is automatically linked to the consumer’s mobile phone number.”

How do you balance robust KYC and fraud mitigation with a simple, efficient user interface? 

“We employ a significant amount of user testing and practical experience from our own operations to balance what may be seen as competing elements to deliver an optimal solution for each market,” explains Affinity’s Achilles.

Justin Ho from Utiba added “One of the innovative ways in which we handle this is in being able to give different levels of ‘Rights’. For example, level 1, for customers who have provided a bare minimum level of KYC, allowing 10 transactions, restricted to a maximum value of USD 10 per month. At level 2, for customers who have provided a better level of KYC but use a NOT very secure interface like USSD / Plaintext SMS, you might restrict transactions to a maximum value of 100 USD per month and 50 per month. Then at level 3 for customers who have provided a better level of KYC and have upgraded to a very secure interface like STK, the transaction limit could be greater than 100USD with an unlimited number of transactions. By allowing various levels of ‘Rights’ we are able to induce trials, and give an efficient user interface. Once the customer is ‘hooked’ to the service, we encourage him/her to upgrade to higher levels of ‘rights’.”

“We have taken the approach to provide real-time transaction level based screening as a more comprehensive and richer approach toward balancing the risk versus experience issue” concluded Norman Frankel of Mi-Pay.

How to integrate your mobile wallet with banks

Phil Sorrell, Director of FE-Mobile explained that “FE-Mobile’s m-commerce platform interfaces directly into the heart of the core system of the financial institution. There are no intermediate tiers involved and the SecureLink™ Java software (both handset client and server-side) provides full end-to-end encryption. To protect users from phishing, identity theft and other attacks, SecureLink employs bi-directional end-point authentication and users are authenticated via two-factors, the PIN and the handset.”

Amit Mattatia, Trivnet’s President & CEO added “integration with banks and in fact, any external system depends on maintaining a rich and sophisticated set of APIs, allowing painless integration to financial institutions, telecom and distributors and merchants. Trivnet has rich experience in integrating with banks and banking gateways, while meeting their required security policies. We support various banking protocols such as ISO 8583.”

Another key consideration in selecting your mobile wallet partner is which channels they support and whether it’s client or server side

“The Redknee service to date supports both SMS and USSD access channels. These channels have the distinct advantage of being standards specified and therefore supported by almost every Mobile handset on the planet. The Server based approach means that there are no handset client distribution issues to be resolved,” comments Ian Hendry, Product Manager, Mobile Money Services. “Redknee also supports a handset client solution to improve usability and provide additional security mechanisms such as PKI certificates enabling mobile digital signature and encryption of the financial transactions. In environments where this additional layer of security is required, the service is provisioned to the end user after performing a SIM swap.”

Fundamo’s van Rensburg, explained that the SIM card “provides the most secure cryptography to host an application. Millions of SIM cards across 15 countries have Fundamo logic on the SIM card. Fundamo also has clients on just about any channel you can think of: Java, Browser, GPRS, HTML, WAP, USSD, Structured SMS and even IVR.”

ASP or license?

“The Redknee solution can be provided on-site as either a traditional software license model with annual support costs or we can provide a pay-as-you-grow (or revenue sharing) model. The advantage of the revenue sharing model is that the upfront costs for the operator are reduced and therefore more of the available capital can be invested in the Marketing and rolling the service.” Hendry continues, “Redknee can also provide the solution as a managed service, similar to the onsite revenue sharing model. A sign-up fee will be levied to cover the hardware and initial set-up activities on the hosted platform, and a fee per transaction carried will be charged thereafter.”

Mi-Pay’s Frankel believes ASP is the way to go. “We primarily operate on an ASP basis. The current market business case with low volumes, market testing, trials etc and lack of proven take up models do not really warrant a licence based approach in our opinion.”

Beyond Mobile Money Transfer – bill payment and top-up 

Trivnet’s Mattatia spoke about how their mWallet “taps into the fast growing bill payment market and is turning telecommunication distribution networks into powerful enablers of mobile commerce in both developed and developing countries.”

Redknee’s Hendry explained that “the Redknee Mobile Money infrastructure allows for roaming recharge, remote top-up, mobile money transfer, foreign currency exchange, with flexible support for payment clearing and settlements across different regulatory and payment systems.”

Conclusions

There’s a lot of due diligence to be done to select your MMT technology partners and a variety of options either on the market. We haven’t even had time to talk about the option of building your own mobile wallet, the approach favoured by Vodafone with M-PESA. A great place to begin your selection process would be at the MMT 08 Expo, where the leading vendors will demonstrate their solutions and where you’ll be able to hear how to make sure your mobile wallet is part of a successful MMT programme. Good luck!

Companies featuring in this article include: Affinity Global Services, Bharti Telesoft, Edgar, Dunn & Company, FE-Mobile, Fundamo, Macalla, mChek, Mi-Pay, mTranZact, Paybox, Redknee, SEMOPS UAE, Trivnet and Utiba.

Part 1 of “Mobile Money Transfer Explained” examined “the role of the global hubs”.
Part 3 of “Mobile Money Transfer Explained” will focus on “cash in, cash out – the practicalities of developing your agency network”. Visit www.mobile-money-transfer.com and register to the MMT Newsletter to ensure you receive Part 3.

MMT 08 Conference & Expo: Don’t miss the “User and Analyst Verdicts on MMT technologies” and the “MMT technologies shoot out” at MMT 08 on November 10 and 11 at the Crowne Plaza Dubai. Here you will meet the leading mWallet vendors and other MMT technology providers, including SEMOPS UAE, Affinity Global Services, atom Technologies, Macalla, mChek, mTranZact, Mi-Pay, paybox, MoneyBox, Rechargeplus and Utiba.

Visit www.mobile-money-transfer.com for more details.

Steven Clarke, Event Director, Clarion Events Email: steven.clarke@clarionevents.com

For all press enquiries and more information please contact:
Harpreet Sohanpal, Marketing Manager, MMT 08, Clarion Events

Email: harpreet.sohanpal@clarionevents.com

- Various information services: weather, sports, breaking news, traffic, geo-location services, directory services etc.

- Entertainment services: melodies, pictures, games, horoscopes, dating, etc.

- Financial services

Nikhil Pahwa reports:

Barclays Bank has launched Mobile Banking, called “Hello Money”, entirely on the USSD platform, so it doesn’t require GPRS and SMS. I’m not a Barclays customer (though their representatives do call me quite often), but I did give the service a go by dialing *598*#. The service is available in Hindi and English, but there’s a problem -- they’re charging customers Rs. 30 per month, and it is available only on Airtel, Voda and Idea networks.

Wikipedia reports that USSD is the base of some payment methods such as SharEpay in South Africa, Mobipay in Spain, Paysa in India & mPay in Poland.

Pros:
• Works on any modern phone
• Almost instantaneous response (subscriber gets USSD menu without delay)
• Interactivity
• Works in roaming
• Harmonious with a number of technologies – SMS, WAP, Java – that helps to create composite services
• Clarity and simplicity of use – no need to tweak settings or sign up for data packages, no need to multi-tap an SMS. A person enters a number and calls it – a routine operation for even novice people.
• An easy number to remember (you can simply add it to the address book)

Cons:
• Requires a rather quick response (if the user waits too long the session will expire)
• For some models it is not obvious how to navigate in a menu, or a user needs to change the input method (usually to “numbers”).

A user is having an interactive dialogue with a USSD service by choosing menu options. Time given for an answer is limited and usually is around 30 seconds. If the user don’t answer during this time, the session expires (i.e. the dialogue ends) and the user has to send another request to open a new USSD session.

Moreover, there is a limitation on the time of session itself. Sometimes service developers try to limit the time needed to complete a particular task (to download content or receive a melody) by 5 minutes. If the user likes to browse the service longer, the session expires, and the user has to enter again (some services will remember the last location so that the user will restart where she left off).

Number of Symbols

The maximum length of a USSD message (a USSD message is what one sees on the handset when she enters a USSD service) is 160 bytes. Therefore if we talk about the number of symbols, theoretically, the maximum length is:
• Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Cyrillic, certain European languages: 80 symbols
• Latin (GSM 7-bit default alphabet): 182 symbols

In practice, however, it all depends on a particular installation. For instance, in Siberia — a macro-region of Russia for operator MTS, first USSD message is 68 symbols, whereas every consequent message is 80. But for Moscow macro-region, first message is 75 symbols.

The length of the first message is different from consequent messages because the first message also contains service data.

Why is the length of a message so important? Because the 7 symbols of difference between Moscow and Siberia, for example, can add an additional service item to menu. And additional service for a macro-region translates into a lot of money.

Those who develop services for USSD meet challenges posed by the limited number of symbols very often. Examples:

• What code page shall be chosen? If the text is written in Latin characters, more text will fit, but it is inconvenient to read Russian or Chinese in Latin characters. On the other hand not all phones support Chinese or Russian. Our service *111# does not have this issue because the user decides what code page to use.

• Much space is taken by navigation commands (for instance: exit, help, forward, back and so on). Sometimes certain commands can be avoided. For instance, help contents can be send by SMS once the user enters the service for the first time or during navigation when she selects a non-existent menu option or when she writes something incomprehensible as a USSD answer. The conditional help is a lot more useful this way.

• How to name sections so that the names are short, meaning preserving, and curiosity triggering? One funny example from our experience is a piece of content that featured an old man on a scooter. Somehow this content became very popular so soon it has become a name for the whole section (“Ded Na Mopede”).

In the network of a mobile operator:
A USSD request consequently goes through MSC ——>VLR——> HLR. If one of these nodes have a local interpreter, it will process the inquiry. As a rule, however, after HLR the request goes to a USSD center – a network node with a local interpreter. The USSD center acts as a gateway the main function of which is conversion of protocols. (Eyeline USSD center can convert SS7 into SMPP.)

From the user’s standpoint:
USSD interaction is usually organized via menus. A user navigates a menu by sending the number corresponding to the selected menu option. A menu just appears on the phone screen and USSD is just a “transport” for them. Menus are lists of options with line breaks separating them.

Example:
An MTS portal developed by Eyeline. To enter the portal a user dials *111# followed by “Send” and in a few seconds a menu appears on the handset screen. There are 6 options; each has an assigned number to be entered, displayed to the left of the option. By pressing “Reply”, entering a number, and following with “OK”, the user enters another menu.

Let’s assume we want to receive a weather forecast. We see that in the menu we have:
3> Weather

We press “Reply”, enter the number “3″, press “ОК” and enter the section “Weather”.

To summarize by choosing menu numbers we navigate to information about weather. The forecast comes as an SMS. The use of the menu in this case is free of charge for the user. The forecast requires payment, however, so the user gets a note about the price:

Price 5,08 rub with VAT
1> Buy

If the user checks weather often, she can simply dial the weather option directly: “*111*3″.

1) Marketing Bluff
WAP has been marketed as “Internet on your phone”. A simple demo of a WAP site could easily prove that it is quite an overstatement.

For many people there is no “second chance”. Lured by the marketing fluff, they looked at WAP. Realizing the bitter reality they will never come back to what they saw.

2) Technical problems (network overload, for instance) cause frequent interruptions.

3) Requires changes in phone settings.

4) Difficulties with entering WAP addresses on the phone keyboard.

5) Airtime Charging
WAP used to be charged to the user on a per time basis. Per-time charging + low bandwidth = unsatisfied customer.
Plus, all the money goes to the mobile operator. This is bad since as the user is charged on a per time basis and the bandwidth is low, the use of advertisement to generate revenue is very limited.

Possible WAP applications:

• E-mail
• Online, real-time, multi-player games
• Stock trading
• News:
Breaking News
Stock Info
Weather
Sports
• Entertainment:
Downloadable horoscopes, cartoons, quotes, advice
Gaming and Gambling
• Travel:
Schedules and rescheduling
Reservations
Location-based special offers and sales
Financial services:
Account management and billing inquiries
Bill-paying
Funds transfers
• “M”-Commerce:
Shopping on the go
Instant comparison shopping
Impulse buying

Source: procontent.ru

Compilation: Julia Ryzhkova

Unfortunately, WAP is a subject of many preconceptions. For instance, in public opinion, WAP, SMS, and mobile content are somehow related to each other (ads starting with “Send SMS…” have exhausted everyone), although WAP is a lot more than an instrument delivering games or melodies.

Ways and opportunities to make money with WAP are no fewer than are those in the Internet. You can create a site serving any purpose, a virtual shop or an information site. You can also distribute mobile content.

Mobile Content
Magazines and TV are full of offers to send an SMS to a short code to receive ringtones, games, or pictures. Content providers offer “become rich” solutions that involve distribution of their content via one’s WAP site.

Selling somebody else’s content is indeed easy. One has to create a WAP site that is not difficult once you have certain skills, and then you register as a partner with a content provider. In most cases interactions with a partner program are fully automated. The system will ask you for personal information, will help you select relevant content, and will make links to place on your site. You will be left with waiting for money which, if you wish, can come to your virtual account, real bank account, or mobile phone account.

The only “peculiarity” is that there are hundreds, even thousands of content sites and you have to make sure that the user will not only come to your site but will also place an order. For successful sales you will need to offer useful and interesting information alongside your commercial offers, and also promote your site that is apparently costly. Even if the sales take off, average monthly income will most likely be under $50, and in most cases it will fall within $10-15 – amounts, which you will spend on hosting and that obviously do not compensate for your efforts.

WAP shop
If you like the idea of virtual shops, you can start a WAP shop. It is a new but promising direction of WAP development which still has a long way to go. One of the main differences between WAP and Internet is that a user can have access to your virtual shop 24 hours a day from any place since most people have always-on access to their mobile phone. You can determine the model of the phone used and promote your goods accordingly. After receiving an order you can follow communication with a user via SMS or a call.

A virtual shop will require a lot more resources than a simple WAP site with somebody else’s content. Obviously you will have to think about promotion. However, investment in a WAP shop can pay for itself quickly especially if the WAP-display is an organic additional to an existing Internet shop. Even if such addition will not bring more orders from WAP, recognition of your project will increase.

Making of a WAP shop can now be done by any company specializing in programming mobile sites. We shall also expect WAP shop constructors arriving soon.

Information WAP site
Nowadays almost every business has an Internet representation. If you want to go shopping or are planning a night out, you usually turn to Internet for information. Web sites have become an “image” display telling you how the company is doing and how it is treating its clients. Making of a simple mirror of the main site in WAP may have good promotional effects. Your potential or real clients may receive updated information about stock availability, work hours, menu, prices – not only when computer is available but also when information is most required, meaning any time.

Although it may seem strange but designing an information WAP site is as complicated a project as designing an Internet site for the company. Modest technical capabilities of mobile phones and small monitors seriously limit display and organization of information.

Promo-site

WAP is a great promotional tool. When a sequel to Ice Age came out, it was promoted with a special site. It is still available here. On the site one could meet heroes of the film, check about dates when the movie opened in theaters, and get free content: videos, pictures, ringtones, and themes for the phones. This project obviously was targeting active young people who are ready to watch, download, and share the content. Marketing payback from the site is not limited to textual and visual information. After the content is downloaded, phones become advertising carriers if the initial screen features a logo or the user plays a video about the project or company to his or her friends.

Success of such projects rests with the product being presented and the promo site. The Ice Age 2 project have been very popular because of its funny videos, pictures of well-known heroes, and because of the beautiful yet simple interface of the site.

Managing Director of i-Free Cyrill Petrov says: “WAP becomes a leading environment for mobile marketing projects. Experience of advertising in WAP shows response rates ten times higher than in traditional Internet. Moreover, as a rule, we know the region where the client is and even the model of the used mobile phone. All this makes WAP advertising not only an effective promotional channel but also a great tool for marketing research. And if we use full capacity of mobile marketing – interactive features of mobile phones, networking interests, SMS notifications, call center connectivity, call back features – opportunities explode. However, we shall not be forgetting about the user: he or she must be getting relevant information, otherwise there is a good chance to loose his or her trust.”

“It’s unlucky that the acronym for Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) has such an unfortunate rhyme! Even more unlucky for WAP, it burst onto the mobile communication scene with lavish promises from the Mobile Operators (you know who you are) of ‘The Internet on your Mobile’ and ‘Take the Internet with you’.

That really was a load of WAP.

So, a few years on we can ask, like Frankie Goes to Hollywood, ‘WAP, what is it good for’?

More than you might think, given the current deafening silence from those same Mobile Operators.

The rise (and rise) of SMS is instructive. This has gone from nowhere to everywhere with practically no promotion from the networks. Type SMS into Google and you get 52 million hits! In China in 2003, 220 Billion SMS messages were sent. During 2003 in the UK alone, 30 Billion were sent, which equates to 500 for every man, woman and child in the entire country! What is going on here?

Well SMS is cheap, not cheap enough perhaps but, up until a couple of years ago, much cheaper than calling. So it was a viable alternative to making a mobile phone call, everyone could send and receive them, and it didn’t matter what handset you used or what network you were on (or even which country you were in).

Much the same is true of WAP. Most handsets sold this century in GSM markets are compatible. Costs, especially using GPRS, are very low, as long as the information is optimised for the handset. Actually, it costs less to read your email with GPRS than to send an SMS. How times change!

And people are using it, too. In the UK in December 2003, the number of WAP pages viewed was over 1 billion for the first time. The Mobile Data Association (MDA) forecasts 13 billion for 2004 as a whole, up from 9.2 billion in 2003 (against an original MDA forecast for 2003 of 8 billion).

All this is in the face of complete indifference, if not outright hostility, from the networks. The problem for them is that, as mentioned, WAP is cheap. You can get all the mobile email you need via WAP to your handset for around one tenth of the cost of a RIM Blackberry data subscription. And please don’t ask how much the running costs are of a laptop mobile data card! A while ago, one of my colleagues used more data in a month than the cost of the mobile data card itself. Since then the networks have introduced more reasonable price bands, but he now gets all the email he needs on his cellular phone via WAP for one hundredth the amount spent during those expensive 30 days. And he doesn’t need to carry a laptop around with him, wait for it boot, wait again for it to download the mail, and balance it on one hand whilst holding his coffee with the other and his mobile phone in a third!

One of our customers for our mobile email software reads his mail whilst shaving in the morning. He can find out what has been happening overnight without having to get his computer out, dial in and log on. Another browses whilst tending to his cows, miles from mains electricity. Yet another admits he reads his mail in board meetings. So far luckily no-one has noticed his mobile sitting on the desk in front of him.

And there is for WAP, most likely, no new device to buy, either. Nothing additional to weigh down your pockets or to find room for in your briefcase. And it isn’t just good for email. You can also look up train timetables, get news & sports results, find medical information, find a restaurant and see what’s on the TV tonight.

And you can do all this, with the one electronic device that most people have with them all of the time – their mobile phone.

So – no new expensive devices are required, no high monthly charges are incurred and there is no waiting. No wonder the Mobile Operators aren’t impressed!”