A wireless gateway architecture integrates support for a plurality of wireless standards and protocols. In accordance with the architecture of the invention, a wireless gateway includes a chassis with an interconnecting backplane for allowing the addition and removal of different modules as they are needed. Each system module (e.g. WAP accelerator, SMS module, Page module, Mobile IP module, TSL/WTSL Accelerator, Multimedia Accelerator) is a fully working product that supports one particular function. A common bearer module supports all wired network interfaces such as Ethernet, ATM, Frame Relay, ISDN and more, as well as all wireless protocols including GSM, GPRS, SMS, Paging and more. A common database stores user and system information. A central manager manages all system modules, communications among them, and regular health check-ups. A wireless gateway preferably further includes a dedicated WAP engine that offloads the WML encoding and decoding functions from the CPU.