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NowSMS Support Forums ⬆ NowSMS Support - MMS & Advanced Issues ⬆ Archive through April 05, 2007 ⬆ |
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| Author | Message | |||
| Nelson New member Username: Nelson Post Number: 5 Registered: 01-2006 |
Hi Bryce, I'm interested in exploring the use of bar codes sent via MMS (or SMS). I am thinking that an image of a bar code would be sent in an MMS message. Is it that simple? I've also seen some suggestions that it is possible just using SMS. Can you provide any pointers? Thanks, nelson | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support Board Administrator Username: Bryce Post Number: 6188 Registered: 10-2002 |
Hi Nelson, Yes, it is basically that simple. But as with all seemingly simple things, there are techincal issues that can get in the way. With large numbers of phones MMS enabled, it makes a lot of sense to send bar codes via MMS. But ... MMS can be more expensive than SMS. And ... it can be difficult to find a high volume connection to an MMSC provider. (It is easier to send MMS via a GPRS modem than to find a provider, but when you do this, you have speed/performance issues, and you can't use premium rate services ... unless you send both an MMS and a separate premium rate SMS.) There are applications that are sending bar codes via SMS only. In those cases, the monochrome barcode image is sent out using either Nokia Smart Messaging or EMS. But when you do this, you have to know more about the capabilities of the destination phone. (And you would need to test with different phones and have your own database of which phones support which protocols.) While EMS has wider industry support, and has been standardised in the GSM and 3GPP specs ... I have yet to see any Nokia phones with EMS support. And, most newer phones from various manufacturers seem to support simple monochrome image capabilities via Nokia Smart Messaging. You can send images out using EMS and Nokia Smart Messaging with NowSMS 2006 ... where NowSMS will perform the image conversions. I will mention that when phones do support EMS images, they usually only support images that are small enough to fit into a single SMS. So the images have to be relatively small. (But many phones that only support EMS images small enough to fit into a single SMS will support multipart Nokia Smart Messaging images.) Note, however, that when I'm talking about Nokia Smart Messaging and EMS, I'm mostly talking about GSM environments. So if you're targeting the US, you may be better off going the MMS route. (EMS and Nokia Smart Messaging are technically supported in CDMA environments ... but EMS is binary and it is very difficult to find binary compatible SMS providers for CDMA. Nokia Smart Messaging uses a text format in CDMA environments, which is workable ... but many GSM phones that support Nokia Smart Messaging only support the binary format, so you need to use text Nokia Smart Messaging for sending to CDMA, and binary for sending to GSM.) Needless to say the issues are a lot simpler if you go the MMS route ... or if you are outside of the US. Outside of the US, another potential consideration is using multimedia WAP Push, where you send the barcode to the device using WAP Push. (Cheaper than MMS and able to go out via SMS so that you can send through an SMS service provider.) -bn | |||
| Emma Murphy New member Username: Murph Post Number: 1 Registered: 10-2006 |
Hi, I am also exploring the use of barcodes sent via SMS/MMS. I have done some proof of concept tests and have found that the basic 1D barcode scanners are very hit and miss in reading the MMS barcodes from a variety of phones. Is it recommended that special barcode scanners are used for MMS barcodes, or should theoretically any 1D scanner work? Thanks, Murph | |||
