It plans to roll out a version for the United States next year. In the US market, one phone is commercially shipping, Motorola i1000, sold by Nextel. Alcatel and Siemens are selling phones in France and Italy. But that is only the beginning. European research firm Strategy Analytics estimates that within five years there will be 525 million WAP-enabled phone users from Western Europe to the United States and Asia.
Sprint plans to have a service and a phone on the market by year's end.
Whether it uses the WAP 1.1 spec or still employs pre-WAP technology, Sprint's Terry Yu said the user gets a cell phone with an Internet access option and that is what matters to consumers, not the spec inside. Sprint will offer WAP in phones by the end of the year and consumers who choose to use the service will pay Sprint on a per-use basis. The package won't force consumers to make a one-time decision to buy an Internet option, Yu explained. Pricing has not been determined. Consumers generally won't see any price difference in WAP-enabled phones, Linder said.