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. 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. 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.