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I'm trying to offer services over the MobiTex network (also see wiki) and want to reduce double-work. I'm trying to understand if it is a good idea to WAP enable my website.

Given that WAP usage is increasing (since MMS is a hybrid of SMS + WAP), and the FCC has required every operator in the 700Mhz range to implement it I'd like to fully understand if there are benefits to the technology for certain critical applications.

For example, if GPRS allows SMS traffic, voice, and Data, presumably they are handled by different Gateways. If there is another gateway for WAP traffic I would think that it would act as a backup if the data gateway was overloaded.

Are there resiliency benefits to using WAP on a critical website? i.e. Content delivery (push or pull)

HopelessN00b
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makerofthings7
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Your edit notwithstanding, I would certainly consider WAP to be "legacy" in the age of smartphones and true mobile data.
The amount of additional work/infrastructure/overhead required to handle something like web pages over WAP would do nothing but introduce cost and complexity (thereby increasing the chance of a failure), so while this is technically possible I would say it's politically infeasible at best.

The IP infrastructure was designed to be resilient, as is the cellular infrastructure mobile data rides on (Lose your tower? Switch to another that's in range. Lose one upstream IP route? Switch to another path.) -- because of this resiliency (and other benefits) there are cellular towers in my area which use an IP uplink for their backhaul, so no matter the cellular-level protocol being used it's still a private IP network moving the data in the end.

Re: your question about how carriers are charging for usage, this would be carrier-specific, and way out of scope for Server Fault - our goal is not to be a repository of outdated information about pricing structures.
If you want to pursue something like this you would need to talk to each carrier whose services you want to use to determine (a) if they'd be willing to allow this particular use of WAP, and (b) how much you'd have to pay per KB..

voretaq7
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