According to abbreviationfinder, MMS stands for Mobile multimedia messaging. MMS is a universally accepted standard as part of the 3GPP technical specifications, which allows mobile phone users to with MMS capabilities, send and receive formatted text, sound, images, animations and video clips in the same message. High resolution videos, sounds and images can be downloaded to the phone from WAP content servers, transferred to the phone using an attached accessory, such as a digital camera, or received in an MMS message. MMS messages can be sent to another MMS capable mobile phone or to an email address. MMS, like SMS, guarantees the user the sending of information and uses storage and forwarding technology, that is, it does not guarantee the sending of data in real time.
Characteristics
- The limit of each multimedia message is usually 100 or 300 KB, depending on each mobile.
- MMS are a new extension of mobile messaging to include, at first, real images and sounds, later videos.
- It is independent of the type of transport and mobile network used.
- It has the SMIL standard (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language – synchronized multimedia integration language)
- Supports video format: 3GP and MPEG4.
- Supports sound format: AMR, WAV, MP3 for real sound, MIDI and IMY format for melodies.
Steps to send MMS
- Enter the number of the person you want to write to.
- Write your own message.
- Add a digital image or sound.
- Send the message.
- Basically, MMS packets are transmitted over WAP in binary data frames. MMS was initially developed on top of WAP 1.2, a protocol that was not conceived to support MMS, unlike the new version of WAP 2.0, which officially supports MMS as one of its specifications. The wireless application protocol or WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) has meant, since its introduction in 1999, the opening of the Internet to mobile terminals with WWW micro-browsers operating on the implanted GSM networks, constituting the first step towards the third generation of mobile communications or 3G. It is a platform for the development of WWW services and applications, independent of the type of user terminal and the network used. The WAP protocol provides users with access to interactive services, such as weather information, news, banking, entertainment services, etc.
- Each frame in an MMS package consists of several small and independent objects and can contain images, sounds or text of various sizes at the same time. The frame also has a header that shows the origin and destination of the packet. The message presentation language used is SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language), which is a standard based on the XML (eXtensible Markup Language) of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). SMIL has two main functions: to show where an object is to be presented on the screen and to use timing to add or remove objects, as if it were a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. To facilitate its use by means of the editor of the mobile terminal, there are several pre-established templates for the construction of pages, but it is also possible for those who want to create the pages from scratch. The size of the terminal screen allows three objects to be displayed simultaneously on each page, for example, a text, an image and a sound; and the message can consist of several pages.
Advantage
- Direct and personal
- WAP Push potential
- Potential benefit to sender and receiver
- Increased user interactivity through multimedia
- Sending images, small (short) video clips, voice messages, some small files
- Simultaneous playback advertising can also be done.
Disadvantages
- It is not compatible with basic phones.
- Content does not always fit as expected due to factors such as screen size and resolution variations between models.
- Users who have opted for an MMS database do not necessarily have an MMS phone (which leads to excess messaging at an additional cost).
- Sending MMS messages in bulk is often only available through a dedicated messaging platform rather than a network.
- User is not sure of the associated costs.
Image Formats Supported mms
GIF89a, GIF 87a, WBMP, and JPEG.
Sound formats supported by mms
AMR and iMelody; and it doesn’t support video.
Development
- In the future, MMS will also support standard image formats such as JPEG 2000; video formats such as MPEG4, ITU-T H.263 or Quicktime; and sound formats such as MP3, WAV, and MIDI. While the average size of an MMS message is 140 bytes, that of an early stage MMS message will be around 30,000 bytes and later around 100,000 bytes.
The multimedia messaging therefore requires high transmission speeds, which can offer GPRS and UMTS. GPRS (General Packet Radio Services) technology supposes the emergence of packet switching based on the IP protocol in the world of mobile data, achieved through data digitization techniques in current GSM networks, speeds of 50 Kbps that They may soon reach 115 Kbps. While the GPRS system has been implemented since 2001 in most GSM networks, UMTS requires the deployment of a practically new network and will not be commercially available until around 2003.
UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) is optimized to allow interactive high-speed multimedia services, such as voice, Internet access and video conferencing; and will provide speeds of up to 2 Mbps in local areas and 384 Mbps in wide access areas with full mobility.
With GPRS and UMTS, you are billed by the amount of information transferred, instead of by connection time, as in GSM.
- In order to use MMS, it is necessary that the GPRS or UMTS operator’s network has the necessary elements to offer this service and that the user has a mobile phone with MMS capability, as illustrated in Figure 1. Sony Ericsson and Nokia are the fastest-moving mobile phone manufacturers to enter the MMS market. To support MMS technology, existing GPRS networks require a Mobile Multimedia Messaging Service Center or MMS-C (Multimedia Messaging Service Center). The MMS-C is responsible for the transmission, storage, sending and notification of receipt of multimedia messages between mobile terminals or between a mobile terminal and any device that supports MMS. This system is also in charge of generating the billing data of the messages and of converting or adapting the messages to the capabilities of the receiving terminal; that is, if for example an MMS terminal with a high resolution color screen sent a color image to an MMS terminal with a low resolution black and white screen, it could convert the image to black and white.
Similarly, the terminal receiving an MMS message does not need to be compatible with this technology; The MMS-C will detect this fact and will send you, instead of the multimedia message, a normal SMS where an Internet URL address is indicated in which the message will be stored, which you can download via WAP. This ability to identify the capabilities of the receiving MMS device is new with respect to the SMS-C (Short Message Service Center); thus being able to solve in MMS the compatibility problems that currently exist in SMS. The main providers of MMS-C, according to data from a recent study by Desdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, are: Ericsson, Nokia, CGM, Logica and Comverse.
