[Finnish company says first services based on push technology to be available within the next few months.]

Finnish mobile software company LPG Innovations has demonstrated the first functioning WAP push connection. The connection was made over a GSM/GPRS network using a regular WAP phone. WAP push will be featured in future versions of LPG Innovations' mobile office solution, LPG WAPoffice(tm).

LPG WAPoffice enables wireless access to basic offic applications such as email, calendar and addressbook. With WAP push, users receive notifications of incoming email and new calendar entries directly to their handsets. The notifications contain direct links to email and calendaring systems.

Push technology is one of the most significant features in the new WAP 1.2.1 standard. It enables a WAP session to be automatiacaly opened from the network. By using push technology, information can be automatically pushed from the Internet to the mobile device.

Push technology introduces new kinds of mobile services. An example is a service that continuously tracks the online stock market sending alerts to users' WAP terminals when shares reach a preset limit. The alert message can include additional information such as a direct link to the online stock brokerage.

New WAP 1.2.1 standard also enables services resembling instant messaging to be built in a WAP environment. WAP push messages resembly SMS messages, but offer a better user interface for manipulating data. Compared to a SMS message, WAP push offers the additional benefit of longer messages, because the messages are not restricted to 160 characters as in SMS messages.

LPG INnovations' successful WAP push connection was made using a Nokia Activ Server 2.0 and Ericcson R520m developer's test version, one of the first mobile phones compliant with the WAP 1.2.1 standard.

More...

Back to Headlines...