| Get MMS with GPRS ? |  Search
|
|
NowSMS Support Forums ⬆ MMS & SMS Technical Discussions (unsupported) ⬆ Archive through October 29, 2003 ⬆ |
◄ ► |
| Author | Message | |||
| Tony |
Hello, i m sorry for so much questions, but its very important .... Can i receive MMS with a GPRS connection ? I tested it with Nokia 7650 and it works with WAP (GSM) without Problems , but if i select an GPRS connection .... nothing happens  my mobile phone connected the GPRS and after any seconds disconnect it this. Thank you for answers Tony | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support (Bryce) |
Yes. Most people don't realize that they can get MMS without a GPRS connection, using a standard GSM dial-up connection (MMS does send and retrieve over a WAP session). The trick with GPRS is that you need to connect to a GPRS APN that provides a routable internet connection. Most operators have at least two different APNs, the default WAP APN provides a connection that gives you a private IP address that can only make connections through the operator's WAP gateway. Then they also have another APN which they promote for PDAs or laptops, which provides a routable IP address ... it might also be a private IP address, but one that has a NAT (network address translation) that allows communication on the internet. Beware that when you configure to use the operator's "internet APN", you will generally not be able to connect to their WAP gateway. For this reason, we do have a public WAP gateway available at 213.48.20.10. (Or we can help you find an MMS compatible WAP gateway if you want.) So you can setup a WAP profile that is used for MMS connections only ... which connects to the operator's "internet APN", through a public WAP gateway. Let us know how you proceed on this ... we'd like to compile a list of GPRS APN settings for different operators. If you setup a profile for the 213.48.20.10 gateway, configure the home page as http://mms.now.co.uk/index.wml. And then try a WAP connection to verify that the profile works. (Once you verify the profile works, switch back to the operator WAP profile for browsing ... or change the home page as the one listed here is just a test page to verify that a profile works.) One other trick worth mentioning. Many operators have a GPRS APN setup specifically for MMS. That APN only allows connectivity to a WAP gateway that only connects to the operator's MMSC. If your phone appears to have such a setup, many times just changing the MMS settings to use the standard operator WAP profile will give you open MMS access. -bn | |||
| Nick Jarosinski |
I know this is a very simple question, but what does MMS stand for and how is used? A simple explanation would be sufficient. I am writing a report on Nokia for a management class and your help would be greatly appreciated. | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support (Bryce) |
I'm not really sure where to start on this ... MMS stands for "Multimedia Messaging Service" ... essentially it was envisioned as a multimedia enabled add-on service to SMS. But to send larger amounts of data, the message content is transferred over GPRS (or any other IP bearer, not just GPRS). Good luck in your searches! -bn | |||
| Stefan Richter |
I created an MMS message with mmscomp and stored it on a webserver. Then I tried to send the MMS on my Sony Ericsson T68i with the NowSMS MMS notification. I successfully received the MMS notification but I get an error while trying to download it: Communication-/Network-Error I configured the GPRS data account with APN of my provider and used the wap gateway adress 213.48.20.10 you named above. The T68i tried to download the message, but after 30 seconds it said "communication or network error". So can anyone tell me what might be the problem. BTW: Can anyone tell me what the message server (homepage) settings are for? Why do I need these settings? Why isn't it sufficient to just send the URL where to download the MMS, so that the mobile phone connects to this URL using the configured WAP gateway (that connects over the configured APN)? May be I missed something? Thanks a lot, Stefan | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support (Bryce) |
Stefan, Can you successfully browse WAP sites connecting to the WAP gateway @ 213.48.20.10? Note that most mobile operators have multiple GPRS APNs ... the default WAP APN usually only allows connectivity to the operator's internal WAP gateway. To use an external WAP gateway, you need to use an APN that provides full internet connectivity. My guess here would be that you tried to use the WAP APN with an external gateway, so the phone was never able to open a session to the gateway. That said, you can usually fetch MMS just fine through an operator's WAP gateway. The MMS message server (home page/relay server URL) is use primarily when the phone sends an MMS message. -bn | |||
| Stefan Richter |
Thanks a lot for your answer. I now was able to receive MMS sent with NowSms-MMSC. But a problem for most of our potential users (receivers) will be, that they can not get MMS from their own operator and (at the same time) get MMS from the NowSms-MMSC, because the operator (e.g. D2-Vodafone) normally uses a special MMS-Wap-APN, that can only connect to their internal gateway (that is what you already described) and MMSC. I think all Wap (MMS) downloads over this special APN don't cost anything for the user, because the MMS is already paid by the sender. Because this APN can not be used for MMS from NowSms-MMSC, the user has to change the used wap-profile settings every time he gets an MMS (and the settings of the wrong profile are active at that moment). Is that a known "problem" or is there a way to make that simple for the user? Thank you, Stefan | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support (Bryce) |
Stefan, That is a big problem. And it varies from country to country. The only way to get around this is to submit your MMS messages through the operator with MM7. (We don't support MM7 yet, but we'll be adding that in the near future. But that requires you to have a VAS agreement with the operator, which is generally not inexpensive. Complicated even further by a usual requirement that most applications would require VAS agreements with multiple operators.) A better solution would be if the operators with this type of configuration would allow users to fetch MMS messages over the WAP APN as well as the special MMS APN. Then users could opt to receive other MMS messages as well as messages from the operator's MMS system. (The data charges to receive an MMS are minimal.) I personally think that there is something very anti-competitive about these types of setups, but unfortunately I'm not a legal expert. The simple free market solution would be for operators to allow users to configure their phones to communicate with the operator MMSC over the WAP APN, as well as the MMS APN. -bn | |||
| Stefan Richter |
Hi Bryce, your answers explained everything perfectly, thank you very much! Stefan | |||
| Anonymous |
Hi, I would like to test your software. Will I be able to MMS notification using your software connected to a GSM modem with SIM Card. If this is possible we would like to try out your software. | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support (Bryce) |
Yes, you can. | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support (Bryce) |
Test reply. | |||
| Thanos Tsamis |
I know it might be silly but what the "APN" Stands for? Thank you in advance Thanos | |||
| Anonymous |
"APN" = "Access Point Name" This is the node (access point) through which you connect from the GPRS network into the IP network. | |||
| Thanos Tsamis |
(once again...) I have downloaded the trial version of NowSMS and I really try to use it for my purpose. I want to be able to send to my mobile MMS from my computer through the internet. Is that possible? If yes how should I configure the software and/or my cell phone for this purpose? (If the answer is too big to fit here, please mention a general way to be able to work on further). Thank you in advance Regards, Thanos Tsamis | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support (Bryce) |
Hi Thanos, I'd suggest working through the Installation Guide that is included as a link when you install the software, or is also available on-line here as the Quick Start Guide. Even though you're interested in MMS, not SMS, follow through step-by-step and start with the SMS related functions. MMS is built on top of a combination of SMS and WAP technologies, so it is important to make sure that the SMS related functions are working before you have a chance of using the MMS functionality. -bn -bn | |||
| Thanos Tsamis |
Yes, but the "Quick Start Guide" tells about the configuration for a GSM phone or modem and I don't have this equipment. I want to send MMS through the internet (e.g. e-mail) and not through a GSM phone. All I'm asking is the software's configuration that must be done, in order to do that. If this is not possible, could you tell me a little about the procedure that takes place when a "Now-SMS/MMS" user sends an mms to a cell phone? I mean how the software works to do that; the procedure from the pc to the end cell phone user. Sorry if I insist, but I'm thinking to buy this software for my company, and I want to make it work before (and it's 46 days left of the trial period). Thank you in advance Yours Thanos Tsamis Athens - Greece | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support (Bryce) |
Thanos, Assuming that you have another type of SMSC connection, then configure that, and skip over the bit about the GSM modem. Keep in mind that you need some sort of SMSC connection ... either a GSM modem or an account with an SMS service provider. SMS doesn't work like the internet ... at the end of the day, when a message is delivered to a mobile phone, the mobile operator will have charged someone for the delivery of that message. Some mobile operators do have e-mail gateways for SMS (mostly this is in the US where the charging for SMS is different ... both sender and receiver pay a charge for an SMS ... but in Europe, sender always pays which makes operator SMS e-mail gateways impractical). But with these gateways, you can only send text messages, not binary format messages. To send an MMS message, you need to be able to send binary format messages. The process of delivering an MMS message to a handset works like this: 1.) You start with a content file that contains the content of an MMS message. This message may have been created by an application (such as the web menu interface of the Now SMS/MMS Gateway), or it may have been created by a user sending the message from a mobile phone. (When the message is sent from a mobile phone, a mobile phone connects to an MMSC via WAP and transmits the MMS message content to an MMSC and the MMSC then takes responsibility for further delivery.) 2.) The MMS message content is published (usually by an MMSC) so that it is accessible via a URL. 3.) An MMS notification message is sent to the recipient mobile phone using binary SMS. This MMS notification message contains header information about the MMS message, and a URL pointer that tells the mobile phone how to retrieve the MMS message content. 4.) The recipient mobile phone opens a WAP session, and retrieves the MMS message content from the URL contained in the MMS notification message. So you need to have an SMS link to get this binary message out. -bn | |||
| jim bob |
i tried the ip adress for the gprs and i went to home and straight away it says 'gprs connection not available' what should i do | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support |
Jim Bob, Is this occurring in the MMS client? If so, is WAP access working alright in the WAP browser? If WAP access is working ok, then configure the MMS client to use the same GPRS APN (access point name) as configured for the WAP browser. These settings vary from operator to operator, but if you are getting a message indicating "GPRS connection not available", this indicates that either you are not provisioned for GPRS access on your account, or the GPRS APN is not configured correctly on the phone. -bn | |||
| Anonymous |
how to get GPRS access point? | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support |
When your mobile phone makes a GPRS connection, it needs to connect to an Access Point Name (APN). The APN assigns an IP address, and enables the IP connection over GPRS. The GPRS APN that you use is specific to your mobile operator. Each mobile operator establishes their own APNs on their GPRS network. The APN that you use can also vary depending on the type of account that you have with the mobile operator ... for example, some operators setup separate APNs for pre-pay vs. pay-as-you-go customers. -bn | |||
