WTLS aims to provide privacy, data integrity and authentication between two communication applications. Among its features are datagram support, optimised handshaking and dynamic key refreshing. It is optimised for low-bandwidth bearer networks with relatively long latency. The WTLS Record Protocol is a layered protocol. The Record Protocol takes messages to be transmitted, optionally compresses the data, applies a MAC, encrypts, and transmits the result.
Received data is decrypted, verified, and decompressed, then delivered to higher-level clients.
If a WTLS implementation receives a record type it does not understand, it ignores it. This is particularly useful with packet-oriented transports such as GSM short messages. The handshake protocol is made up of 3 sub-protocols. All messages are encapsulated in a plaintext structure. The Wireless Transaction Protocol provides the services necessary for interactive browsing applications.