Sony Ericsson P802 manual MMS Multimedia Messaging Service, Benefits, MMS objects

For Internal Use Only	P800 Smartphone
	White Paper, May 2002

MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service)

One of the key features in the P800 is the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), expected to become the preferred messaging method of mobile terminal users, since there are virtually no limits to the content of an MMS transmission. An MMS message from the P800 can contain text, graphics, animations, photographic images, audio clips and ring melodies.

Defined and specified by 3GPP as a standard for third generation implementation, MMS completes the potential of messaging. Sending digital postcards and multiple-slide style presentations is expected to be among the most popular user applications of MMS. Eagerly awaited by young users in particular, MMS is projected to fuel the growth of related market segments by as much as forty percent. Using the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) as bearer technology and powered by the high speed transmission technologies GPRS, EDGE and UMTS (W-CDMA), Multimedia Messaging allows users to send and receive messages that combine text and media in slides, having a built-in timing sequence decided by the sender. The messages may include any combination of text, graphics, photographic images, speech and music clips. MMS will serve as the default mode of messaging on all terminals, making total content exchange second nature. From utility to sheer fun, it offers benefits at every level and to every kind of user.

Benefits

Essentially enabling the mobile terminal to serve as image processor and conveyor, Multimedia Messaging accommodates the exchange of important visual information as readily as it facilitates fun. Business and leisure usage of MMS will be dynamically merged, resulting in enhanced personal efficiency for users and increased network activity for operators. In short, MMS affords total usage for total communication Because MMS uses WAP as its bearer technology and is being standardized by 3GPP, it has wide industry support and offers full interoperability, which is a major benefit to service providers and end users. Ease-of-use resulting from both the gradual steps of the messaging evolution and the continuity of user experience gained from interoperability is assured.

The MMS server, through which MMS messages are sent, supports flexible addressing (to both normal phone numbers (MSISDN) and e-mail accounts), which makes user interface more friendly and allows greater control for operators. The MMS server, moreover, is responsible for the instant delivery feature of MMS.

MMS objects

Although MMS is a direct descendant of SMS, the difference in content is dramatic. The size of an average SMS message is about 140 bytes, while the maximum size of an MMS message is limited only by the memory. Multimedia Messages will initially be in the range 30k-100kbytes. The P800 is optimised for messages up to 200kbytes. In the P800 the MMS inbox is only constrained by the amount of available user storage.

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