How Does M-Commerce Work?
M-commerce is enabled by using the mobile phone to access the Internet to surf for and make purchases – just like e-commerce. This means that you need to use a WAP-enabled mobile phones. WAP, of Wireless Application Protocol, is a technology that allows mobile handsets to connect to the Internet and read specifically-coded pages (coded in wml, rather than the html of normal web pages). M-commerce encompasses all the transactions of e-commerce (like purchases of goods and services, banking and so on). The obvious benefit is that you can be anywhere and still make e-transactions. However, due to the relative newness (to the public) of the technology, the number of WAP-enabled companies and their offerings are limited. Furthermore, because of the narrow bandwidth of the digital network in Australia at present, WAP pages, although still part of the Internet, can only display text-based and very simple images in the WAP phone’s screen.
