Wap revival: you read it here first

A UK company has said that it plans to encourage other developers to build services for the troubled mobile protocol, Wap.

Joe Network has launched two Wap services, aimed at businesses and consumers, which it hopes will prompt a snowball effect in the market. The company blamed misleading marketing for building unreasonable expectations of Wap.

Chief operating officer Nik Howard said that criticisms of the protocol's capabilities were based on jazzy marketing campaigns, and that Wap services have not failed to live up to its design.

"Wap does exactly what what it's designed to do - deliver data to phones over a 9.6Kbps mobile network," said Howard.

Analyst Tim Sheedy at IDC said that European carriers need to invest more resources in Wap, as NTT DoCoMo has done in Japan with iMode. "A good iMode app will make you $2m, but Wap sites haven't changed for six months," he said.

"Developers aren't making any money, and they have to feed their children too," he added.

The Joe Professional service is priced at £19-95 for 800 minutes, and the company says it will be offering free Wap handsets to customers on the Orange network within the next two weeks. "Wap has been over-hyped and poorly prepared for in Europe."