Multimedia Messaging Services

1. ABSTRACT

The mobile population is increasing like anything and to meet the ever-increasing demand
of the mobile users is not a simple task. A grueling research in various fields of science has
already begun in various parts of the globe to find a new and innovative means of mobile
communication, which must completely satisfy the mobile users. Keeping this important point
under consideration this paper has been framed on a unique; or rather an interesting topic called
MMS (Multimedia Messaging Services), which is gaining a tremendous momentum in the recent
past and which is expected to dominate the future of mobile technology.

The main aim of this paper is to uncover the hidden secrets of the multimedia messaging
services, which has already created a mobile revolution in some parts of the world. This paper
starts with a very brief information about the generations of mobile technology and then the
multimedia messaging services (MMS) is unleashed in a very interesting and informative manner.
This comparisons between MMS, SMS, EMS is well discussed in depth. This paper also deals
with SMIL-Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, which is the language that is used to
develop MMS contents.

Next how MMS gets implemented is explained well with illustrative diagrams. This part of
the paper really takes you into the MMS- Center which controls and monitors the transfer of the
multimedia data in the mobile world.

Finally the futuristic visions and predictions of MMS is dealt with. Full care has been taken
to explore the magic of MMS with illustrations and table and graphs '.v'-'erever possible.

-1-

SNGCE Kadayiruppu

Multimedia Messaging Services

2. INTRODUCTION

Communication is one of the very important aspect in this world. As ~'-~es have
changed our communication has also changed along with it. The snail a ; 's, which we sent
earlier, are hardly in existence today. We people always demand for a faster and better method of
communication. Fortunately today we have reached a very important landmark in communication
with the birth of a new way of communication -MMS (Multimedia Messaging Services). The next
few pages will take you into it. But before going into that, knowledge of the generations of mobile
technology is very important to fully appreciate the technology of MMS.

A very short description of the generations in mobile technology is given below for that
purpose.

3. GENERATIONS IN MOBILE TECHNOLOGY

Everyone knows that computers were mere monstrous vacuum tubes in its early
days of invention and usage. Things changed gradually and finally we are now left with computers
that can very comfortably sit on our laps without occupying much of space and scientists believe
that computers will become a part of the body with the help of some hot technologies like
nanotechnology and artificial intelligence in the near future. This change or revolution in the
computers did not happen in a day, it took more than 50 years for the computer to take a form that
is compact as well as convenient for the user to operate. The same sort of revolution is happening
with the mobile technology, but in a very faster manner than that of the computers.

Moore's Law (named after Intel cofounder Gordon Moore) states that "the number of circuits
packed into a given area of a silicon chip doubles approximately every eighteen months, leading
to similar improvement in processing power". To our wonder the mobile computing is accelerating
at a rate much faster than Moore's Law.

Now lets see what are the various generations in the mobile technology:

1G:
The first generation of systems for mobile telephony was analog, circuit switched, and it
only carried voice traffic. The analog phones used in 1G were less secure and prone to
interference where the signal is weak. Analog systems include -VPS, NMT and ETACS.

2G:

"Computer Science & Engineering

-2-

SNGCE Kadayiruppu

Multimedia Messaging Services

The second-generation phones cover all speech into digital code, resulting in a clear
signal that can be encrypted for security. Most also include some kind of messaging, as well as
support for voice mail and caller ID. The most popular is GSM (Global System for Mobile
Communications), but several others are used around the world. They can send data, but usually
at less than 10 kilobits per second (Kbps). 2G networks include GSM, D-AMPS (TDMA) and
CDMA. 2G networks can support SMS applications.

2.5 G:

The successor of the 2G technology is the 2.5G. 2.5 G supports higher data speeds. The
term 2.5G also applies to technology such as WAP (Wireless Application Protocol), which uses a
version of the web to fit into a mobile phone's slow data rate and small screen. 2.5G networks
include EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates) and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service). These
networks support WAP, MMS, SMS mobile games, and search and directory.

Though MMS was introduced in the 2.5G, it really gained its momentum and fame only
with the introduction of 3G.

3G:

The present hype is around the Third Generation (3G) phones, which is expected to play
a very important role until atleast 2010. 3G systems will provide a variety of advanced services,
including data transfer at upto 2 megabits per second 'Mbps). 3G will support multimedia
applications such as full-motion video, video conferencing and Internet access. 3G will cover bot
only the connection between a ^obile terminal and its base station, called the WAN (Wide Area
Network), but also

"Computer Science & Engineering

-3-

SNGCE Kadayiruppu

Multimedia Messaging Services

Seminar Report 'Oft

'.he LAN (Local Area Network). 3G is a generic term covering a range of future wireless network
technologies, including WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), CDMA2000 (Code
Division Multiple Access), UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service) and EDGE.

4G:

Fourth Generation networks are already in the labs, targeted for deployment beginning in

2010. They will provide data rates up to 100 Mbps, enough for telepresence. This is a type of
virtual reality, defined as full stimulation of all senses required to provide the illusion of actually
being somewhere else - an illusion that cannot be distinguished from the real thing. However, still
there are many years for this to get implemented.

Now lets discuss about the key topic on this paper - MMS (Multimedia Messaging Services).

4. MULTIMEDIA MESSAGING

a picture, handwritten message, and a personal

SERVICES (MMS)

song or sound clip that has been recorded by the

"A picture says more than a

thousand words and is more fun to look
at!!!". Everyone in this world believes in
this quote. And this is also one of the
main

quotes

developers

that
who

inspired
gave

mobile

this

hot

technology -MMS.

MMS,

user itself. Video conferencing, which is expected

to make a great impact in the future, is also
possible with this technology. Using the Wireless
Application Protocol (WAP) as bearer technology
and powered by the high-speed transmission
technologies

and

UMTS

to send and receive messages that look like

Multimedia

Messaging

service. It traced its roots from SMS

(Short Messaging Services) and EMS
(Enhanced Messaging Services) .MMS
will allow users to send and receive

PowerPoint-style Presentations.

MMS supports standard image formats

such as GIF and JPEG, video formats such as
MPEG 4, and audio formats such as MP3, MIDI
and WAV, also the new AMR.
The greatest advantage of MMS is its

messages exploiting the whole array of

media types available today, e.g. text,
images, audio, video, Graphics, data,
while

GPRS

(WCDMA), Multimedia Messaging allows users

Service, is a standardized messaging

animations,

EDGE,

also

making

it

possible to support new content types

as they become popular. With MMS, for
example, users could send each other
personal pictures together with a voice

ability to interact with mobile to mobile terminals

as well as with mobile to PDA \Laptop \lnternet
and other data devices. VMS can also act as a
virtual email client. Greatly anticipated by young
users in navicular, MMS is projected to fuel the
growth of related market segments by as '"uch as
forty percent.

message, such as a greeting card with

rr:

r: Computer Science & Engineering

-4-

SNGCE Kadayiruppu

Multimedia Messaging Services

Seminar Report '06

6. SMIL: Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language

MMS uses its own standardized presentation protocol, the Synchronized Multimedia
Integration Language - SMIL, pronounced 'smile'. This descriptive language (also a markup
language) has the same function as HTML on the Web and provides great freedom of design.
SMIL is a presentation format, i.e. a SMIL page contains information about the appearance of
different multimedia elements on a display. When SMIL is used to represent content on a PC
screen, normally a window is opened whose size is defined by the layout element of the SMIL
page to be displayed. In this way, the appearance of the SMIL page on the screen will reflect
exactly the organization of the content as the author had created it. When SMIL is used for the
presentation of multimedia messages on mobile terminals, the size of the window is severely
limited by the resolution and appearance of the terminal display. The layout of a multimedia
message represents the content as created by the originator, but it is well possible that the original
layout simply does not fit into the display of the receiving terminal. Therefore, SMIL exchange
must be simple enough to ensure that -if the displays of the originator and receiver terminal are
different- the content can still be displayed, possibly by changing the relative position of the
different elements.

~q: The same message needs to be reorganized for

different displays.
Due to the limited processing power of the first generation of MMS-enabled devices, this
adaptation process must be achieved without the need of complex
content analysis and interpretation. In order to achieve this goal, the layout of the outgoing
message should reflect (in terms of size and orientation) the display characteristics of the
originating terminal, and must always contain at most two regions one labeled as "Text", the other
as "Image".
If the receiving terminal can fit the SMIL layout in its screen as is, no change w'H be
necessary. Otherwise, the SMIL page can be modified by ideally replacing 'he layout section in

Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering

SNGCE Kadayiruppu

Multimedia Messaging Services

Seminar Report '06

the incoming message with another one specific to the receiving terminal, in which the size and
the position of the "Text" and "Image" regions are aopropriately redefined.

7. MULTIMEDIA MESSAGE SERVICE ENVIRONMENT

The biggest merit of MMS is its "Store and Forward technique." ( also similar to
that in SMS ).Using this technique , messages are not sent directly between users but
via an MMS center. This aspect allows for a number of key MMS attributes, such
asinstant delivery, nominal tariffing and message delivery unhindered by network
traffic and allows the user to view the multimedia files he received during his recent
past.

MMSC
SM3C

Mobile network B

FIG: The MMS Environment

The MMSC acts in similar way to the SMSC in that it sends, receives and
stores multimedia messages. It is the central router in the MMS architecture. The
MMSC interacts with external network such as PSTN, Internet and Intranet. It also
transfers Multimedia Messages between different mobile networks. However, unlike
SMS and EMS that are sent over the signaling channel, MMS messages are delivered
over traffic channels. These are designed to carry a range of data services in GPRS
and UMTS networks, with higher capacity and a lower likelihood of congestion. The
technical specifications laid down by 3GPP for the MMS Standard
define a certain set of requirements on both terminal and network side, which needs to be
supported for the provision of the multimedia message service.

Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering

SNGCE Kadayiruppu

Seminar Report '06

Multimedia Messaging Services

The aim is not to standardize the services but instead use a standardized set of service
capabilities features on which new services can be built. The MMSE may comprise 2G and 3G
networks, 3G networks with islands of coverage within a 2G network and roamed networks. The
MMSE provides all the necessary service elements, e.g. delivery, storage and notification
functionality. These service elements may be located within one network or distributed across
several networks or network types.

Unlike SMS, which uses proprietary standards like SMPP, EMI and CIMD, MMS will use
existing Internet standards, which will facilitate development of services and interworking with the
fixed Internet. These protocols include WAP, MIME, and POP3 and SMTP.

When a user 'A' sends an MMS message to an user 'B' whose mobile does not support
MMS, then the user 'B' gets a SMS message that "You have received a MMS Message from User
A", followed by the URL where the message has been stored in the internet. Now user 'B' could
access the net and view the message. This is how communication happens between MMS
enabled mobiles and mobiles deprived of MMS facility. Isn't this aspect of MMS interesting?

Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering

SNGCE Kadayiruppu

8. THE FUTURE IS MMS !'.!!!!

MMS is becoming the preferred messaging method of mobile terminal users, since
there are virtually no limits to the content of an MMS transmission.SMS has been an
unqualified success for both end users and service providers. With practically no
high-profile marketing undertaken by mobile terminal vendors or network operators,
this value-added service is currently used to send some 21 billion messages per
month worldwide charged for it. It is expected that MMS will cross the landmark of
the SMS very soon. Recent research showed that people are willing to pay five
times more for MMS when compared to SMS.

A market penetration of 25 percent for MMS-ready devices happened in the year

2004. MMS will much more than SMS be driven by attractive applications. In the
year 2005 it is expected that over 30 percent of useable communications volume
(traffic) and more than 50 percent of sales will be achieved with MMS services that
are supported by application or content servers

animated chat .video streaming , multimedia shopping , high graphical

multimedia games will splash into the mobile market.

Live news update and video conferencing will become common.

The mobile devices may slowly replace computers.

Web logs or "blogs" - are also gaining interest from operators as a way of

increasing MMS and SMS traffic.

MMS will be one of the most important weapons in a 3G operator's armoury of massmarket services, catalysing a market for services and content that is estimated to be of
worth around $70 billion globally by2007.
9. CONCLUSION

MMS is expected to become the preferred messaging method of mobile terminal

users, since there are virtually no limits to the content of an MMS transmission. It has a

great future ahead. It will be one of the most dominant way of communication as discussed
earlier. Its popularity is increasing day by day. MMS will be one of the most important
weapons in a 3G operator's armoury of mass market services, catalyzing the market for
services and content that is estimated to be worth around $70 billion globally by 2007.
Greatly anticipated by young users in particular, MMS is projected to fuel the growth of
related market segment by as much as forty percent.

10. REFERENCES

The Essential Guide to Wireless Communications Applications - Andy Dornan.

GPRS and 3G Wireless Applications by Christopher Anderson.

MMS for Wireless Networks - Scott Guthery , Mary Cronin

MMS Wireless Application Development -McGraw Hill Text

www.gsmworld.com

www.mms.com

www.3gpp.org

CONTENTS

1. Abstract
2. Introduction
3. Generations in mobile technology
4. Multimedia messaging services

5. How MMS different from SMS & EMS

6. Synchronized multimedia integration language

7. Multimedia message service environment

12

8. Future is MMS

14

9. Conclusion

16

10.

References

17

Multimedia Messaging Service, or MMS, is a standard way to send messages that

include multimedia content to and from mobile phones. It extends the core SMS
(Short Message Service) capability that allowed exchange of text messages only up
to 160 characters in length.
The most popular use is to send photographs from camera-equipped handsets,
although it is also popular as a method of delivering news and entertainment content
including videos, pictures, text pages and ringtones.
The standard is developed by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), although during
development it was part of the 3GPP and WAP groups.

Contents
[hide]

1 History
2 Technical description
3 Challenges
4 Interfaces
5 See also
6 References

7 External links

[edit] History
Multimedia messaging services were first developed as a captive technology that
would enable service providers to "collect a fee every time anyone snaps a photo."[1]

Early MMS deployments were plagued by technical issues and frequent consumer
disappointments, such as having sent an MMS message, receiving a confirmation it
had been sent, being billed for the MMS message, to find that it had not been
delivered to the intended recipient. Pictures would often arrive in the wrong formats,
and other media elements might be removed such as a video clip arriving without its
sound.
At the MMS World Congress in 2004 in Vienna, all European mobile operator
representatives who had launched MMS, admitted their MMS services were not
making money for their networks. Also on all networks at the time, the most
common uses were various adult oriented services that had been deployed using
MMS.
China was one of the early markets to make MMS a major commercial success
partly as the penetration rate of personal computers was modest but MMS-capable
cameraphones spread rapidly. The chairman and CEO of China Mobile said at the
GSM Association Mobile Asia Congress in 2009 that MMS in China is now a
mature service on par with SMS text messaging.
Europe's most advanced MMS market has been Norway and in 2008 the Norwegian
MMS usage level had passed 84% of all mobile phone subscribers. Norwegian
mobile subscribers average one MMS sent per week.
By 2008 worldwide MMS usage level had passed 1.3 billion active users[2] who
generated 50 billion MMS messages[3] and produced annual revenues of 26 billion
dollars.[4]

[edit] Technical description

MMS messages are delivered in a completely different way from SMS. The first step
is for the sending device to encode the multimedia content in a fashion similar to
sending a MIME e-mail (MIME content formats are defined in the MMS Message
Encapsulation specification). The message is then forwarded to the carrier's MMS
store and forward server, known as the MMSC. If the receiver is on another carrier,
the relay forwards the message to the recipient's carrier using the Internet.[5]
Once the MMSC has received a message, it first determines whether the receiver's
handset is "MMS capable", that is it supports the standards for receiving MMS. If so,
the content is extracted and sent to a temporary storage server with an HTTP frontend. An SMS "control message" containing the URL of the content is then sent to the
recipient's handset to trigger the receiver's WAP browser to open and receive the
content from the embedded URL. Several other messages are exchanged to indicate
status of the delivery attempt.[6] Before delivering content, some MMSCs also
include a conversion service that will attempt to modify the multimedia content into
a format suitable for the receiver. This is known as "content adaptation".
If the receiver's handset is not MMS capable, the message is usually delivered to a
web based service from where the content can be viewed from a normal internet
browser. The URL for the content is usually sent to the receiver's phone in a normal
text message. This behaviour is usually known as the "legacy experience" since

content can still be received by a phone number, even if the phone itself does not
support MMS.
The method for determining whether a handset is MMS capable is not specified by
the standards. A database is usually maintained by the operator, and in it each mobile
phone number is marked as being associated with a legacy handset or not. It can be a
bit hit and miss since customers can change their handset at will and this database is
not usually updated dynamically.
E-mail and web-based gateways to the MMS (and SMS) system are common. On the
reception side, the content servers can typically receive service requests both from
WAP and normal HTTP browsers, so delivery via the web is simple. For sending
from external sources to handsets, most carriers allow MIME encoded message to be
sent to the receiver's phone number with a special domain. An example of this would
be PTN@messaging.carrier.com, where PTN is the public telephone number.
Typically the special domain name is carrier specific.

[edit] Challenges
There are some interesting challenges with MMS that do not exist with SMS:

Handset configuration can cause problems sending and receiving MMS messages.
Content adaptation: Multimedia content created by one brand of MMS
phone may not be entirely compatible with the capabilities of the recipient's
MMS phone. In the MMS architecture, the recipient MMSC is responsible
for providing for content adaptation (e.g., image resizing, audio codec
transcoding, etc.), if this feature is enabled by the mobile network operator.
When content adaptation is supported by a network operator, its MMS
subscribers enjoy compatibility with a larger network of MMS users than
would otherwise be available.
Distribution lists: Current MMS specifications do not include distribution
lists nor methods by which large numbers of recipients can be conveniently
addressed, particularly by content providers, called Value-added service
providers (VASPs) in 3GPP. Since most SMSC vendors have adopted FTP as
an ad-hoc method by which large distribution lists are transferred to the
SMSC prior to being used in a bulk-messaging SMS submission, it is
expected that MMSC vendors will also adopt FTP.

Bulk messaging: The flow of peer-to-peer MMS messaging involves several

over-the-air transactions that become inefficient when MMS is used to send
messages to large numbers of subscribers, as is typically the case for VASPs.
For example, when one MMS message is submitted to a very large number of
recipients, it is possible to receive a delivery report and read-reply report for
each and every recipient. Future MMS specification work is likely to
optimize and reduce the transactional overhead for the bulk-messaging case.
Handset Configuration: Unlike SMS, MMS requires a number of handset
parameters to be set. Poor handset configuration is often blamed as the first
point of failure for many users. Service settings are sometimes preconfigured
on the handset, but mobile operators are now looking at new device
management technologies as a means of delivering the necessary settings for
data services (MMS, WAP, etc.) via over-the-air programming (OTA).
WAP Push: Few mobile network operators offer direct connectivity to their
MMSCs for content providers. This has resulted in many content providers
using WAP push as the only method available to deliver 'rich content' to
mobile handsets. WAP push enables 'rich content' to be delivered to a handset
by specifying the URL (via binary SMS) of a pre-compiled MMS, hosted on
a content provider's web server. A consequence is that the receiver who pays
WAP per kb or minute (as opposed to a flat monthly fee) pays for receiving
the MMS, as opposed to only paying for sending one, and also paying a
different rate.

Although the standard does not specify a maximum size for a message, 300 kB is the
current recommended size used by networks due to some limitations on the WAP
gateway side.[citation needed]

[edit] Interfaces
Main article: MMS Architecture

MMSC Reference Architecture

MM1: the 3GPP interface between MMS User Agent and MMS Center
MM2: the 3GPP interface between MMS Relay and MMS Server
MM3: the 3GPP interface between MMS Center and external servers
MM4: the 3GPP interface between MMS Centers
MM5: the 3GPP interface between MMS Center and HLR

MM6: the 3GPP interface between MMS Center and user databases
MM7: the 3GPP interface between MMS VAS applications and MMS Center
MM8: the 3GPP interface between MMS Center and the billing systems
MM9: the 3GPP interface between MMS Center and an online charging
system
MM10: the 3GPP interface between MMS Center and a message service
control function
MM11: the 3GPP interface between MMS Center and an external transcoder