Sending and Receiving MMS from Application

Sending and Receiving MMS from Application SearchSearch
Author Message
Anonymous
Posted on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 07:03 pm:   

Hi,

I have some questions about your product I hope you will be able to clarify.

I want to build and application that will be able to send and receive MMS messages from other mobile phones that use my local operator's MMS-C.

While I understand that your product effectively acts as a MMS-C, can it act as a phone client with a GSM modem so that my friends can send me the MMS and my computer is able to receive it?

Kindly advise, thanks!
Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support
Posted on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 07:19 pm:   

At present, the answer to this question depends upon the configuration of your operator's MMSC.

Let me explain.

When an MMS message is sent to a handset, what happens is that the handset receives an MMS notification message to inform it that it has received a new MMS message. This MMS notification message is transmitted using binary SMS ... and basically, the message consists of header information about the MMS message, and a URL link to the content of the MMS message.

When configured to receive MMS message, the Now SMS/MMS Gateway parses this header, and attempts to fetch the URL that contains the MMS message content, so that it can then parse the MMS message content.

Where the configuration of your operator's MMSC comes into play is a question of whether or not the Now SMS/MMS Gateway is able to fetch the URL that contains this MMS message content.

With some mobile operators, this is no problem, as their MMSC is accessible for this retrieval over the internet.

For other mobile operators, the MMSC is behind a firewall, or on a private IP address, and can only be accessed if you are connected to the operator network with GPRS (or WAP dial-up), and accessing the MMSC via the operator WAP gateway. In those cases, the Now SMS/MMS Gateway is unable to fetch the URL, and unable to receive the content of the MMS message.

We are working furiously on v5.0 of the Now SMS/MMS Gateway which adds the ability to initiate a GPRS connection over a GSM/GPRS modem, and fetch the MMS content URL through a WAP gateway. We expect to be posting a beta release of this upcoming version soon. So stay tuned to http://support.nowsms.com/discus. If you want to be notified when a beta release of this version is available for testing, please visit the home page of our web site, and enter your e-mail address in the Newsletter form, and click Sign Up.

-bn
lars m
Posted on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 07:28 pm:   

If you run wap3gx from own server, and set your customers mobiles up to use that for mms services it would work using nowsms and wap3gx.
I installed wap3gx demo and it worked like a charm ;-)
Wouldn't it Bryce ?
Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support
Posted on Monday, June 23, 2003 - 07:32 pm:   

That's right Lars.

Actually, in a lot of instances, you can even do it using the operator's WAP gateway instead of your own.

But if you do setup your own WAP gateway, it's a lot easier to troubleshoot.
Anonymous
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2003 - 10:59 am:   

Bruce, how would connecting a GSM/GPRS modem work if the operator puts MSISDN identification in the HTTP request of the WAP GW? In that case, the MSISDN put by the GW would not match the MSISDN of the recipient of the message?
Carlo Bertolino
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2003 - 02:17 pm:   

I have a similar problem when I try to send MMS and I think that the cause is that the local operator (TIM) require WAP GW access.
I see the error "Unable to fetch URL:...".
I can ask wen this new 5.0 beta version will available?
Thanks
Carlo

Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support
Posted on Sunday, June 29, 2003 - 03:44 pm:   

Carlo,

A beta release of v5.0 is expected to be made available on the web site sometime between July 10 and July 16. We will post a notice to everyone that has signed up via our newsletter form on the home page when it is posted.

Be aware that while this will have the ability to get around some operator firewall issues, it is generally more expensive to submit an MMS through the operator (as opposed to performing direct delivery as the current version does).

You might want to try experimenting with your MMS settings (on the mobile phone) to confirm that this is the problem that you are experiencing. Try pointing the MMS settings on the phone to the same WAP gateway and GPRS APN as you are using for WAP.

Also, verify that you actually can connect to the NowSMS gateway from the external internet. You would also experience this error if it is not possible to connect to the NowSMS gateway from the outside world using the name configured under "Local Host Name or IP Address" on the "MMSC" page of the configuration dialog.

One good test of WAP connectivity is to put a simple WML file (use .wml file extension) in the MMSCDATA subdirectory of NowSMS. Then try to fetch that file as http://host.name:port/filename.wml via a WAP browser to verify that you actually have connectivity into the MMSC. (host.name = name configured under "Local Host Name or IP Address", port = HTTP port configured on the "MMSC" page of the configuration dialog ... note that some operator WAP gateways will only allow you to use 80. filename.wml is the name of the file in the MMSCDATA subdirectory).

-bn