Wireless Internet at hand

WELLINGTON - Wireless internet has arrived with the launch last week of Vodafone's wireless application protocol (WAP) technology, quickly followed by a new WAP-enabled wireless internet portal by Wilson and Horton associate iTouch.

Seventy two per cent-owned by Wilson and Horton parent Independent News & Media, iTouch will use Vodafone's WAP-enabled network to offer services including news, sport, weather, live share prices and entertainment.

"Our object is to take everything you have on your computer and make it mobile," said iTouch New Zealand's managing director, David Sweet.

With WAP, conventional internet content is broken down to its bare essentials so that it can be transmitted to a mobile telephone.

At present, few handsets are WAP enabled, but by early next year the bulk of new phones will be capable of receiving WAP signals.

Mr Sweet said WAP's potential was enormous and would lead to online mobile transactions such as purchases of concert tickets.

But WAP has its limitations; while the technology will take information from internet sites and reformat it so it can be transmitted to a mobile phone, it does not allow mobile users to browse from site to site.