In addition to being hobbled with patent restrictions, WAP also suffers from a number of other problems.
The WAP specification includes numerous serious technical deficiencies. Many of these stem from a fundamental strategic design decision made early in the development process. Rather than treating cell phones as generic Internet host devices, the WAP Forum has opted to treat them as a unique special case. This has led them to develop an entirely new set of protocols, analogous to, but largely incompatible with, the existing Internet architecture.
For a detailed description of the design errors resulting from this, see the following articles:
The WAP specification has been developed by and remains under the exclusive control of the WAP Forum. Only WAP Forum members may participate in its development and maintenance. Given the WAP Forum's large membership fees, membership is unaffordable by most small businesses, and virtually all academic institutions.
There is therefore no assurance that WAP is subjected to adequate technical review, or that it represents the interests of the entire data communications community.
RFC publication of a protocol ensures its free, unrestricted and permanent availability. However, rather than being published as an RFC, the WAP specifications are self-published by the WAP Forum. The WAP specifications therefore do not carry these same assurances of free and permanent availability.
Also, the WAP Forum does not guarantee the stability of its specifications, reserving the right to change them without notice.
There is a general perception that WAP will make the entire Internet content accessible via cell phone, just as it currently is via a conventional ISP. In order for a WAP device to retrieve information from a website, however, the site must have a WAP-enabled server, programmed to deliver the website content to the cell phone. So if a particular website is not WAP-enabled, it will probably not be available via cell phone.
Use of the WAP specification to access web content requires the use of WAP gateways, operate by the Service Provider. This places a layer of control and authority between the creator and consumer of website content, greatly diminishing the potential for unrestricted and organic growth of the Internet.