Cellphone Meets the Web

WAP - or Wireless Application Protocol - provides access to Internet and other services previously only available on a desktop computer or laptop. It is widely seen as probably the most significant development in communications technology since the Internet.

iTouch PLC, in which Independent News & Media has a 72% shareholding, has been developing WAP services since June 1999 at its development base in Cape Town, adding the service to its array of other mobile technologies, including voice, fax and short messages services (SMS). Many of its products have been developed over the past five years for Vodacom, with which it has a close working relationship, and are now being rolled out internationally. It has subsidiaries in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand where similar WAP services will soon be available.

Using the Vodacom network iTouch now has fourteen information services available on the WAP portal, including news, sport, weather, live share prices and entertainment. More will follow as the number of WAP phones grows. Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Vodafone, IBM, Palm Computing and many other companies have all made announcements in recent weeks relating to WAP developments.

The big Internet companies, AOL and Yahoo!, have also announced alliances aimed at exploiting the mobile information market which is seen as growing even faster than the Internet.

The iTouch service uses a microbrowser, similar to a miniature version of Internet Explorer, to display data on a screen slightly larger than the existing models. "Our object is to take everything you have on your computer and make it mobile," said Avi Azulai, joint managing director of iTouch and one of the two founders of the company. "WAP allows us to separate the content and only send to the mobile handset the information the user needs. The possibilities for WAP are enormous: you can discover the latest music hits, concert tickets can be bought, transactions carried out, the latest share and business information will be instantly available. Basically anything you do on the Internet can now be accessed via the WAP phone."

iTouch recently announced the acquisition of a controlling shareholding in DigitalMall.com, a group specialising in e-commerce, which has accelerated iTouch's ability to offer a greater range of m-commerce services. It is already piloting transactional services with flower ordering already available on the mobile phone, and CDs and books to follow shortly.

Compared to South Africa's one million Internet users, over 5m now have mobile phones and the number is still growing rapidly. At present few of those cellphones are WAP enabled, but that will change rapidly over the next year as a new generation of phones hits the market. All the major cellphone manufacturers, including Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens and Motorola, are now producing first generation WAP phones which are flooding in to world markets. Ericsson says all the company's phones will be WAP-enabled by early next year. WAP phones already on the marked include the Nokia 7110, Siemens S25, Motorola P7389 and Ericsson R320 handsets.

WAP users will not browse from Web site to Web site in the way they do on the Internet. The technology is designed to take information from sites, reformat it and transmit it over the more limited bandwidth available for mobile networks. iTouch has exclusive access to the information provided by Independent Online, which aggregates the content of Independent Newspapers' 14 titles in South Africa. It also takes financial content from I-Net Bridge, the weather from Stormchasers and other content from a variety of providers.

"WAP will result in cellular phones becoming the portable information devices of the future making the convergence of the Internet and cellular a reality. Cellphone usage has exploded because people prefer contacting a person rather than a place. Similarly, WAP usage will rocket as information becomes independent of location" says Andrew Mthembu, Managing Director of Vodacom (Pty) Ltd. "The consumer will be using the WAP handset to access specific information that will add value to their lifestyle. Some of the very useful applications will be doing a quick search for a restaurant in an area that you are travelling through, finding out what the weather is going to do or even getting a traffic or sports report."

Although many companies have announced their intentions to enter the world's hottest new market, not many services are currently up and running. For example DoCoMo, the Japanese mobile operator, has teamed up with Microsoft to develop and market corporate mobile services in Japan that would link a broad range of wireless terminals to corporate servers and the Internet. Similarly Yahoo! and Mannesmann, the German mobile operator recently taken over by Vodafone in the biggest take-over deal in history, have joined forces to deliver Internet services on WAP enabled mobile phones.

Most of these services however are either not yet launched or are at the pilot stage. iTouch, now headquartered in London, has been concentrating on mobile solutions since 1995 and has been testing WAP services since September 1999. It has also led the way with the development of SMS in South Africa, now one of the fastest growing areas of data transmission worldwide, and in voice technologies.

Ends. Tuesday, 29th February 2000

For Reference: Wayne Pitout/Avi Azulai Tel: iTouch South Africa +27 - 21 - 415 2100

Dot Field Tel: Vodacom Corporate PR +27 - 21 - 82 990 0174

Jim Milton/Tom Byrne Tel: Murray Consultants +353 - 1 - 632 6400