Provisioning OTA Through a WAP Push

Article
08/29/2006

Windows Mobile-based Smartphone and Windows Mobile-based Pocket PC, Phone Edition can be bootstrapped by means of over-the-air (OTA) Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) push. This method is useful if the mobile operator prefers to bootstrap the device over the air at the point of sale or after purchase. In this method, a provisioning document that uses the format defined in the WAP Provisioning specifications can be pushed to the device over the air through the WAP connectionless nonsecure push mechanism over the Mobile Terminated Short Message Service (SMS) bearer.

The content of the push message is a WAP provisioning XML file. For more information about the WAP connectivity parms that can be put in a provisioning XML file, see the WAP Connectivity Bootstrap Message section. For information about additional custom configuration parms that can also be put in the provisioning XML file, see the Configuration Service Providers.

Benefits The mobile operator does not need to preconfigure the device at manufacture. Operators can bootstrap the device with the configuration data in demand on the fly.

Drawbacks The mobile operator's network must support the WAP push and the WAP provisioning bootstrap requirements. Only the mobile operator can use this method because only the mobile operator knows the device's network PIN.

Mobile operators can use the following steps to complete the bootstrap process through an OTA WAP push:

Define the configuration data required for the bootstrap process, including the WAP gateways (WAP PROVCONT) and any custom settings; for example, updating security policies, the corporation certificate, HTTP proxy, and Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) settings.
Generate the provisioning XML file. Details about the structure of the XML file are covered later in this document. The XML file must be UTF-8 encoded.
Compress the message to WAP Binary XML (WBXML). For information about the custom binary tokens that are not defined in the WAP PROVCONT specification, see
GSM Smartphone and Pocket PC, Phone Edition, Provisioning WBXML.
For security, sign the message with a network PIN and a user PIN, as defined in the WAP Provisioning Bootstrap specification. For Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) SMS, the network PIN is the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number on the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card.
Send the XML file to the Push Proxy Gateway through a Password Authentication Protocol (PAP) constructed as a WAP push message. At the Push Proxy Gateway, use the WAP push OTA protocol to send the message to the device over the air through the appropriate OTA bearer — for example, GSM SMS. The device supports a WAP non-secure connectionless push.
After the message arrives at the device, the message will be sent to the SMS Router. The SMS Router uses other tools to route the message to the WAP stack. The WAP component decodes the WAP push message and sends it to the Push Router. The user enters the user PIN from the UI after the Push Router displays an authentication UI. The Push Router authenticates the message and routes the provisioning message to Configuration Manager. If the message is signed with a user PIN and a network PIN, this message will be assigned both an Operator role and a User Authenticated role. For more information, see Security Policies and Roles and Push Router.
Configuration Manager grants the Manager role to the configuration XML according to the Grant Manager policy and calls specific Configuration Service Providers to process the decompressed XML.

If the bootstrap process is successful, the customer will receive a configuration update success message in Inbox.

For more information about the components of Smartphone and Pocket PC, see SMS Router, Push Router, and Configuration Manager. The section about Push Router includes an example of a WAP push message.

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Provisioning OTA Through a WAP Push

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