IGNITING excitement in the local wireless communications market today is WAP or Wireless Application Protocol. And since WAP is an open global standard that allows an interface between the Internet and the mobile phone instead of a personal computer, one of its radical effects in the country would include open connectivity--a liberating standard to be acquired by the mobile business from the Internet world.

WAP's open connectivity would mean that WAP would be a key to freeing mobile users from accessing information through the Internet. It might also mean liberating users from the high cost of accessing Internet from a PC. It might also mean that, regardless of what telecoms company an end-user subscribes to, he or she will have easy access to information because the communication is open via WAP technology.

"We are looking at a technology that I think cannot just be owned by anyone in particular,'' said Nicanor V. Santiago III, Globe Telecom's assistant vice president for customer usage loyalty and retention marketing-mobile business. Santiago spoke before a group of IT enthusiasts who had formed the PhilWAP Users Group, a non-stock, non-profit organization that aims to nurture WAP developers and entrepreneurs in the country through training, facilities and seed capital for WAP application and businesses.

Santiago said that whether mobile and telecom operators like it or not, they will have to get rid of the exclusivity barriers these operators have set for themselves.

"This is a paradigm that local mobile or telecom operators will have to seriously contend with in the near future,'' he said. "For WAP, I believe that it is specifically one of the primary roles of an operator, so we don't aim to possess content or applications and just own it for us. In the first place that is information and information is openly accessed from the Web,'' he added.

Santiago stressed that a collaboration like PhilWAP would actually enable the fast development of WAP to happen.

"Developers are getting very excited about this software technology because it's open, it's flexible and it provides access in an unprecedented way to the World Wide Web,'' said Gregg Marshall, Lucent Technologies Philippines president as he referred to the emergence of WAP in the country. Marshall was a guest speaker at the "WAPcceleration Media briefing'' hosted by members of PhilWAP.

PhilWAP president Ramon Canumay said that the vision of the organization is to make it the center for WAP application development in the world and to incubate potential WAP start-ups. He cited India, whose software development industry placed the country on the IT map.

"India is now on the IT map because it has been able to create a suitable environment for software developers. The Philippines could very well be a similar center for WAP specialists,'' he said.

PhilWAP stated that consumers now could already do banking on WAP phones. Eventually, people on the move would be able to access traffic updates, purchase movie tickets and send e-mail all through a WAP phone.