New Delhi : The much-hyped WAP hasn't quite lived up to the expectations. But there is hope yet. Delhi-based Lifetree Cyberworks, has come up with a solution for people wanting mobile access to the Internet on non-WAP phones. The company has developed software tools which can provide Internet access to non-WAP mobile phones, using the short message service (SMS). The tool, when installed by the mobile service operator, picks up HTML tags from a Website and converts them into smaller WML tags to make its own WML site. The content of this site, can be retrieved by mobile phones through SMS. According to the chief operating office of Lifetree Cyberworks, Sandeep Arora, the solution which has been named as I-w@ (pronounced as Iwa), can be deployed by mobile service operators, Internet portals, and corporate Intranets to provide Internet connectivity to normal mobile phone users. The solution, has an in-built intelligent interpreter, which assigns easy to use interactive menu options, just like in a WAP phone,he explains.
According to Mr Arora, I-w@ can also enable portals to provide their content to legacy mobile phones, independent of mobile operators. This means, that even if your local mobile operator has not I-w@ enabled the network, mobile users from all over the country can still access any site that has installed the I-w@ software. This solution can also integrate seamlessly with WAP-enabled portals, to provide the same content on a legacy mobile phone, he added. Since SMS works on packet switching technology (the data is transmitted in packets), I-w@ can access information at a much faster rate than WAP, claimed Mr Arora. It also works out to be cheaper, he added. WAP subscribers pay at least Rs 4 per minute as airtime cost, over and above the WAP subscription fee. However, SMS based-I-w@ costs only Rs 1.50 per message. On the flip side, however, users have to send messages each time they need to access an option.
Also since I-w@ works on the existing infrastructure of the mobile operator, it is inexpensive for the mobile operator to install and run, as compared to WAP, he added. I-w@ also has an advantage over WAP when it comes to selecting options. While on the WAP phone, you have to necessarily scroll through the entire menu to select the option of your choice, in I-w@ if you know the right option, you can access it directly, informs Mr Arora.
Lifetree has developed @utoWAP (spoken as AutoWap), a WAP enabler for Intranets, Internet sites and portals. @utoWAP is the sole tool required to WAP enable the site. No WAP developers are required and the application is database driven and thus easy to maintain, with an inbuilt Robot and Content Management system.
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