January 13, 2000 Web posted at: 2:02 p.m. EST (1902 GMT) by David Legard

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SINGAPORE (IDG) -- Singapore is gearing up to introduce a flurry of mobile Internet services and applications based on WAP (wireless application protocol). The first WAP-enabled mobile phone handsets are set to become commercially available here early next month.

WAP allows information from the Internet be to be accessed from a mobile phone and other wireless devices.

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Trials have been successfully completed Singapore's two existing mobile phone operators SingTel Mobile and MobileOne Asia (M1). Content providers signed up by M1 include Yahoo and the British Broadcasting Corp.

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M1 expects to soon launch a 14.4Kbps commercial service, offering news, stock and currency information, airline flight details and entertainment information, the company said in a statement. Services to be introduced later include electronic shopping, banking, share trading and games, M1 said.

SingTel Mobile has already begun giving 400 corporate customers a preview of its forthcoming service, by providing them with Motorola's L series or L.M. Ericsson Telephone's R320 WAP-enabled handsets.

Toward the end of the year, M1 will increase WAP data transfer speed by a factor of 10, once its already installed GPRS (general packet radio service) system -- the first in Southeast Asia -- goes into commercial service. M1’s GPRS system, supplied by Finland's Nokia, can support data speeds of more than 100Kbps.

Last week, Motorola completed tests here of a complete mobile Internet platform using GPRS with WAP mobile applications over GSM (global system for mobile communications) networks.

The demonstration combined Motorola's GPRS handsets loaded with WAP-based applications, a complete Internet protocol-based GPRS network infrastructure solution using routing technology from Cisco Systems and a billing and maintenance solution.