TCP/IP Tutorial and Technical Overview - IBM Redbooks

power and for lower bandwidth usage. There are, in addition, formats for data
types such as:
► Images
It supports multiple choices of pixel depth, color space tables, small encoding,
very low CPU and RAM encoding and presentation demands, availability of
common tools, and so on.
► Multipart messages
It supports a multipart-encoding scheme optimized for exchanging multiple
typed content over WSP (see 18.9.5, “Wireless Session Protocol (WSP)” on
page 682).
► User agent-specific formats
This is a function that supports two additional formats for exchanging data
among user agents: electronic business card (vCard 2.1), and electronic
calendaring and scheduling exchange format (vCalender 1.0) specified by
IMC.
WAE also defines WTA-specific formats to support wireless telephone
applications.
18.8 User Agent Profile (UAProf)
One of the aspects inherent in a wireless network is the existence of
heterogeneous mobile hardware, comprising a variety of different capabilities.
Therefore, it becomes possible that origin servers deliver content to mobile
clients that are beyond the client’s capabilities to display. To prevent such an
occurrence, the User Agent Profile (UAProf) was created and defined in the OMA
WAP-248-UAProf-20011020-a specification.
The UAProf allows a client to send data regarding the client’s capabilities to an
origin server, thereby indicating what type of content the server can and cannot
send. Information contained in the UAProf includes:
► Hardware-specific data, such as the device manufacturers, hardware
versions, image capability, and so on
► Software-specific data, such as the operating system, types of encoders,
applications present, and so on
► Browser-specific data, such as the mark-up and scripting languages that are
supported
► Network-specific data, such statistics on the device's performance
capabilities
Chapter 18. Wireless Application Protocol 671