Opera have launched a mobile proxy which, in conjunction with their browser, speeds up downloads (and lowers costs of data transfer) by 250%. Sounds great - but doesn't this validate one aspect of the WAP protocols, which use a WAP gateway to convert XML markup to a tokenised binary form, and forward this (much smaller) data over radio links to handsets?

I can understand people who say that web protocols should be used everywhere (even though I might not agree with that, or some of the assumptions which typically lurk behind it); and I can understand people who believe the WAP route is the right one to go down... but this approach seems to either lack integrity, or take the best of both worlds (depending on whether you like Opera or not ;))