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We propose a WAP-based, Push-enabled mobile Internet application platform, called MAP, to provide extensive services for users in the mobile environment. The goal of this platform is to provide a flexible, scalable and rapid-service-creation environment for mobile Internet applications to operate in. MAP has four main components, which have been designed and implemented: (1) a WAP micro-browser for mobile devices, (2) a WAP simulator for desktops or notebooks, (3) a WAP Push proxy gateway, the MBL Gateway, and (4) a distributed mobile agents server, Wagent. This platform enables mobile clients to access legacy information systems, Intranets and WWW services conveniently. It applies the advantages of the mobile agent paradigm and WAP Push technologies to extend Internet services to wireless environments. It also makes it possible to push critical information, such as news and stock prices, to mobile users in real time. We have also evaluated the performance of the MBL Gateway, which is a key component of the platform, using a realistic traffic model. Experiment results show that the MBL Gateway is more efficient than the other two notable open source WAP gateways in terms of average response time. The MBL Gateway reduces the average response time by up to 25% and 87% compared to the Standalone Kannel Gateway and Original Kannel Gateway, respectively, under the highest load (270 requests/sec when the session arrival rate £f = 0.015).

Keywords: mobile internet application platform, WAP micro-browser, WAP simulator, WAP push proxy gateway, distributed mobile agent server

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Received April 30, 2004; revised August 31, 2004 & February 16, 2005; accepted April 18, 2005.
Communicated by David H. C. Du.
^*This work was supported by the NCTU EECS-MediaTek Research Center under grant Q583 and the MOE Program of Excellence Research under grant 89-E-FA04-1-4. The comments made by the reviewers and the Editor helped improve the quality of this paper.
^*A brief version of this paper was presented at the 7th Mobile Computing Workshop, Hsinchu, Taiwan, 2001, pp. 44-50.