White Paper T610/612
EMS (Enhanced Messaging Service)
EMS uses existing SMS infrastructure and industry standards, keeping investments to a minimum for operators and providing a familiar user interface and compatibility with existing phones.
Sounds and melodies
EMS gives the user the ability to send and receive melodies. These can be
Several sounds and melodies can be inserted in one
message, and they can be combined with pictures.
Pictures and animations
Phones supporting EMS include a set of
Pictures can be created and edited in the phone using a
Messaging using EMS
Concatenated messages
A part of the EMS standard is the support for concatenated messages, which means that the phone is able to automatically combine several messages both when creating and receiving EMS. This is useful to be able to build and display messages with rich content since the amount of information in each SMS is limited by the SMS standards.
relevant ETSI/ 3GPP committees. The major mobile phone manufacturers and most operators are actively contributing to the 3GPP standards. Hence the EMS standard has evolved and is now stable and complete as part of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) technical specification.
Compatible with SMS standards
Users will find EMS as easy to use as SMS. At the moment 15 billion SMS messages, are sent every month worldwide. Roughly 80% of this traffic is
EMS dynamics
An EMS message can be sent to a mobile phone that does not support EMS, or only supports part of EMS. All the EMS elements i.e. text formatting, pictures, animations and sounds are located in the message header. The EMS contents will be ignored by a receiving phone that does not support the standard. Only the text message will be displayed to the receiver. This is true consumer- friendly standardization.
Huge business potential
Network operators can now enhance their services and attract more customers by offering pictures, animations, ring signals and melodies for download at their portals. Operators can charge more per EMS message since it contains more data. Thereby EMS adds more value to the operators and to the end users.
Standards
The Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS) was first submitted to the standards committees by Ericsson. Ericsson presented the outline structure of EMS to the
Examples of EMS contents and applications
A wide range of contents, applications and services may be developed. Below is a list of examples and areas where messaging can be enhanced with EMS.
Messages usually originating from the keypad of a mobile phone can include pictures, melodies, formatted text with EMS.
Voice and
Notifying mobile phone users that they have new voice or fax mail messages waiting - including icons or
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