No, cookies are not held similiar on desktop devices.
There are some limitations, WAP Gateways try to manage the cookies, maybe Cookies are disabled on the device, ...
To avoid this problems, add your session id in the url instead sending a cookie.

You find more information at:
http://www.thewirelessfaq.com/are_cookies_supported_in_the_wap_environment

Actually browser types are coming up as 'undefined' which I hadn't noticed.

If I add the session to the url string, what about pages that have been indexed by search engines?

Awstats is not recommended to measure other than hits and bandwidth for mobile applications. Awstats only reads the apace logs and tries to identify unique users based on IP address among other parameters. In the mobile world the IP address normally is pointing to the wap gateway operated by the mobile carrier....

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jonarne S.

Hello all. I would like to get your feedback on the latest strategies for tracking WAP UU. It is generally accepted that tracking WAP unique users is inherrantly a more difficult process then tracking UU on WEB, with the leading cause being that the IP address exposed is that of the WAP carrier gateway, vs. on web where it represents the individual PC/user. As such, IP's are not useful in tracking WAP UU.

As far as I can tell, and what we have implemented at the company i work for, there are 2 basic strategies available for tracking WAP UU, and one theory I do not have much experience with:

1) Tracking users by cookie - PROS: Arguably the best current method of tracking WAP UU, based on accuracy + device compatibility . CONS: users can clear cookies, devices can auto-erase cookies, potentially leading to counting the same user more than once.

2) Tracking users by sessionID - assigning a unique session to each user per visit - PROS: sessioning removes the handset from the equation, and is a server side measurement. CONS: You cannot count a unique session as an individual unique user, as generally speaking, sessions are closed when the mobile browser closes, and re-issued when the browser starts up and visits the site again.

Experimental strategy:

3) Tracking users with the openwave gateway parameter "x-up-subno" passed in the HTTP header. PROS: Given the parameter is passed, it is by far the most accurate method for tracking WAP Unique users. CONS: Unknown availability of this parameter. Carrier needs to be using the openwave gateway in order to then pass the parameter.

Questions for the group:

1)Generally, we see about 75% of the user agents we detect as able to be cookied. That leaves 25% of our users to track using either sessionID behavior or the x-up-subno openwave parameter. What approaches have you taken to glean WAP UU from sessionID data. Can you come close to approximating X users to X unique wap sessions?

2)Does anyone currently use the x-up-subno parameter as a way of identifying WAP UU? If so, do you have any anecdotal information about relative success or failure in using this method? If you point your mobile browser to: http://t.wurfl.com/info.php - you may be able to see the x-up-subno ID for your particular device. I see it nearly 100% of the time with Cingular/ATT devices.

3)Are there currently any tools in the market that may provide either a) an out of the box "solution" for measuring WAP UU? b) some sort of analytics tools to run across a WAP site to validate currently used methods for tracking WAP UU?

4)Any other points of interest we might all be able to use to help get a more accurate picture of WAP UU?

Many thanks,

Lee

I found a similar problem with my .mobi sites. The solution I turned to was a stats package designed for .mobi websites called mobilestats (http://mobilestats.co.uk). It does not use javascript (cookies) or server side logs, so double hits , miss hits, and ISP caching issues do not effect the stats.

Lee,

you've posted a very comprehensive list.

At Amethon, our Mobile Analytics product uses a combination of IP address, cookies, session IDs, UAPs and other HTTP headers to determine UU. We use this to determine a degree of confidence of our reported UU figures.

We find that most carriers do not pass on any subscriber identification to external parties. We have also seem some carriers who will pass on a session identifier and others who will strip out or modify HTTP header information. Also note that some carriers can set cookies at the WAP gateway if the handset does not support cookies. Different carriers have their own HTTP headers and this needs to be taken into account when deciding what method to use to count UU.

If you want to accurately track your own site, the most accurate method may be to require users to register and login. I know this is painful for customers but it should provide very accurate figures.

Jan

CTO
Amethon Solutions

You are talking only about methodology based on cookies or http header "x-up-subno", but sometimes operators use another headers like 'x-nokia-msisdn' or 'x-up-calling-line-id' to provide developers with MSISDN or its alias.

http://twitter.com/jakubmach

at Amethon we've seen that most operators do not pass on any subscriber identification information in the HTTP headers. Those that do seem to have their own HTTP headers. Here are some more examples:

- X-Hts-clid
- X-H3G-MSISDN
- X-Nx-Clid
- X-Access-Subnym
- X-Orange-ID
- msisdn

This makes it very difficult to track individual users coming from most operator networks.

Jan Varga
CTO
Amethon Solutions

see http://dev.mobi/blog/usefull-x-headers for other useful "x-headers" -- Jon Arne S.

Hi,

How do you get access to the above link?

J

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- Let the might of your compassion arise to bring a quick end -
- to the flowing stream of the blood and tears ..... -
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Never-mind, can open the link now :o

Good stuff, would be interesting to see stats on how much of this actually gets sent.

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- Let the might of your compassion arise to bring a quick end -
- to the flowing stream of the blood and tears ..... -
----------------------------------------------------------

Simply use bango analytics, much better and reliable.

I wish Google Analytics supported detailed analytics for mobiles.

Dear all,

I am new in AWSTAT. Would like to know how AWSTAT determine top 10 browser for WAP ( Mobile handset). It based on User agent? Because currently I saw there is 2 top 10 :

a. SAMSUNG
b. SAMSUNG ( PDA / Phone browser).

Is there any way i.e read the configuration file or access log to know what is the different btw the above 2 phone model or sample make and model

Please advice

thanks a lot

AWstats is not the best option to track visitors to your mobile site. There are many mobile analytics options with new methodologies and measurement tools available which can track accurate data and uniqueness. With the new slogan "life is mobile", it is very important to track correctly how mobile visitors interact with the mobile website. Even big brands are going after the advance analytics option to improve their mobile marketing campaigns.

Some good points in here you should consider.

TheGateKeeper (Muay Thai | Self Defense Laws | Martial Arts for Children)
Thanks