Telstra customers off the air

Telstra is yet to notify customers of the reason their WAP connection is off the air. The carrier told ZDNet Australia the glitch was due to interoperability problems between the browser within the Nokia 7110 handset and Telstra's WAP server.

"We have had interoperability issues with some handsets and their ability to work with the server. The industry is working to improve the interoperability between handsets and services," Telstra's WAP product manager Mark Whitmore said.

Telstra's WAP server is not Nokia-specific, but is based on technology from Phone.com and designed to support a variety of handsets. "We are the only carrier that supports handsets from multiple manufacturers," Whitmore said.

"We will let customers know (about the problem) very soon. They will probably need the browser in the handset upgraded," he said. Customers with the Nokia 7110 handsets would most likely be contacted by Telstra via SMS messages and asked to go to their mobile phone dealer for a software upgrade.

Telstra and Nokia (nok) are working together to solve the issue, according to Whitmore. However, a Nokia spokesman told ZDNet Australia that the manufacturer was not aware of any such problem. Nokia also declined to say how many of the handsets had been sold in Australia.

Additional reporting by Rachel Lebihan