The UK based BBC has announced that it has closed down its old WAP mobile internet site. The closure of the WML based service took place on Monday.

The BBC said that it made the decision based on value for money and usage of the service compared to other services available. Two years ago, WML made up 20% of the BBC mobile internet traffic – today it is less than 1%. In light of the traffic decline, the BBC said that it cannot justify the expense of maintaining the WML version for an ever-decreasing number of users. They  have therefore decided to focus development on the standard XHTML mobile site.

Those devices that support XHTML will be redirected to the XHTML mobile site.

People using older WAP phones will get the following message if they try to visit the WAP sites: “We’ve now closed the WML version of BBC Online. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this causes you. However, if your phone supports XHTML, then you can still access BBC Mobile. Please update your bookma
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In the UK, BT Cellnet (now O2) was heavily criticized within the industry for running marketing campaigns promoting the new WAP phones as having internet like services, when in fact it was a heavily cut down version of what people were expecting to see.

On the web: BBC Help Pages