Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Gateway

Why Trust Techopedia

What Does Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Gateway Mean?

The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) gateway is part of a protocol for protected use of the Internet. In WAP, requests to access a website are sent through a WAP gateway for security purposes.

Advertisements

Techopedia Explains Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Gateway

Typically, the WAP gateway is a server that acts as an intermediary in an access request. The server gets data from the requested web site by HTTP and coverts it into an encrypted form that goes out to the client endpoint.

The protocol used is called Wireless Markup Language (WML). WML has its roots in Extensible Markup Language (XML), a language developed with a specific syntax to address ‘plans’ or ‘schemas’ for complex documents.

In addition to WML, a Wireless or WAP Protocol Stack determines how data are sent between the gateway and the user’s device. This type of networking provides a more capable environment for Internet use as the Internet grows and expands.

Advertisements

Related Terms

Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.