[The open source Kannel project formally releases version 1.0 of its WAP gateway.]

The Kannel project released version 1.0 of the world's first open source SMS and WAP gateway. Kannel version 1.0 is now technically ready and tested for heavy production use. The Kannel gateway is robust and scalable with the capability of successfully handling hundreds of messages per second. Kannel supports the most commonly used SMS center protocols, and is already in production use at Wapit Ltd. and in many parts of the world, both as an SMS gateway and WAP gateway.

As a tested and proven stable open source SMS and WAP gateway, Kannel now also becomes an official part of one of the world's biggest Linux distributions Debian GNU/Linux. Debian has over 10 million users worldwide and thousands of contributing developers.

Kannel is a necessary part of the wireless networking infrastructure as it connects mobile devices to WAP servers. WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) is used to provide services on mobile phones by enabling mobile devices to function as simple web browsers. Kannel implements the WAP 1.1 specification used by the current generation of WAP devices, and works on both Unix and Windows platforms. In addition, Kannel works as an SMS gateway, allowing service implementations to a larger segment of mobile customers than just WAP.

"The Kannel project has now reached a milestone. Here at Wapit, we are happy to see the open source community around Kannel growing steadily, with the common goal of making Kannel even better," says Jouko Vierumaki, CTO of Wapit Ltd. "Because Kannel is free, it takes away the barriers of accessing gateway technology, so that projects of all sizes can develop mobile applications by downloading and deploying Kannel. This opportunity also gives universities an excellent chance to explore mobile technology, without having to spend a lot of money on expensive gateways that are controlled by a handful of big players."

One good example is the Institute of Medical Technology (IMT), an independent research institute of the University of Tampere, Finland, where Kannel is used in BioWap, IMT's biological and biomedical information WAP service. "Kannel has proven to be a very good solution for us, because an important factor for research material services is that they are available free of charge", says Professor Mauno Vihinen from University of Tampere.

"Kannel 1.0 is now ready and tested and has proven to be a very fast and robust gateway, although it's hard to compare with commercial gateways, since their figures are not commonly available," says Lars Wirzenius, the head architect of Kannel. "Since the source code of Kannel is freely available, it's easy to customize Kannel by adding completely new features to it, in order to produce innovative services."

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