WAP and GPRS are concepts that refer to wireless data transmission technology and are used in mobile phones and smartphones. These standards prompted the development of faster information exchange technologies, with the help of which it became possible to achieve higher download speeds.
WAP
WAP is an abbreviation for Wireless Application Protocol, which translates to "Wireless Access Protocol." The purpose of the technology was to realize the possibility of transmitting data on mobile devices and, as a result, the appearance in them of the possibility of accessing the Internet for viewing pages and downloading information. WAP acts as a means of accessing the World Wide Web and displaying website content on the small screen of the phone. The technology is completely mobile and was created due to the impossibility of the previous generation mobile phones to display WEB-pages in full.
WAP was created for GSM phones and was also used on PDAs, some pagers, and the first smartphones. Today, some manufacturers are still releasing models using this technology, and mobile operators do not suspend the WAP service.
To display WAP pages on phones, adapted browsers were installed and mobile versions of web pages written in WML (non-color content) and xHTML (portable HTML) were created.
GPRS
GPRS is short for General Packet Radio Service. It has become an alternative mobile technology for packet data transmission over a radio channel. GPRS was the first step in the evolution of the EDGE standard, which became faster and more efficient due to its increased download speed. Unlike GSM networks, GPRS made it possible to exchange data, which, under ideal conditions, exceeded the information transfer rate via GSM by 12 times. The maximum speed of 115 kbps is ideal, but practically impossible to achieve in practice. The usual speed for GPRS networks is 20-40 kbps.
GPRS is used for mobile internet access and download of mobile content. At the same time, each user is charged according to the amount of data received on the Internet, and not according to the time spent on the network, as it is implemented in WAP. Via GPRS, download of gadget-oriented WAP pages is available. A GPRS phone can be connected to a laptop or computer to get a download speed that can be comparable to the download speed of a conventional modem. GPRS technology allows you to view e-mail, web pages, use instant messaging services and other programs to work on the Internet.
