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NowSMS Support Forums ⬆ NowSMS Support - MMS & Advanced Issues ⬆ Archive through April 05, 2007 ⬆ |
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| Author | Message | |||
| Nikihana New member Username: Nikihana Post Number: 3 Registered: 08-2006 |
Hi, Is there a way to send an MMS message to a mobile phone from the SMSNow gateway via email? Thanks, Srini | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support Board Administrator Username: Bryce Post Number: 6353 Registered: 10-2002 |
Hi Srini, Yes. If you have a working SMSC and/or MMSC connection, and you are able to send MMS messages via the NowSMS web interface ... then you can also submit these MMS messages for sending via an SMTP e-mail interface. The section of the NowSMS 2006 manual titled "E-Mail to SMS/MMS Connectivity" provides more information (see page 215). The NowSMS 2006 manual is installed in the NowSMS program group along with NowSMS. Or it can also be downloaded separately from the "Documentation" page of this web site. -bn | |||
| Nikihana New member Username: Nikihana Post Number: 4 Registered: 08-2006 |
Bryce, Thanks for the quick response. Does this mean that I do NOT need a GSM modem to send an MMS message to a mobile phone? Is there a skype ID for support that I could use? We are looking at a large deployment (potentially) and the GSM modem is proving to be fairly unreliable :-(. I am in USA. Thanks in advance. Srini | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support Board Administrator Username: Bryce Post Number: 6359 Registered: 10-2002 |
Hi Srini, See http://www.nowsms.com/howmmsworks.htm for an overview of how MMS works. It is good to have this knowledge for some background understanding of how MMS works. Reading that usually generates more questions. Understanding the process of how MMS works is relatively simple. But it is the practical considerations of mobile operator connectivity that present the most headaches. So while technically you do not need a GSM modem ... from a practicality standpoint, that may be your only workable option. The USA presents unique problems because there is a mix of CDMA and GSM carriers. The MMS notification format over WAP Push/SMS is different between these two network types. Complicating matters further, there does not seem to be any viable commercial service for delivering the raw binary messages to USA CDMA carriers. The "Direct Delivery" approach described in the "How MMS Works" article will work on T-Mobile and Cingular, as long as the recipient has WAP access enabled. (Actually I believe it only works with some Cingular phones ... I believe there is some issue about whether they are Cingular Blue ... old ATTWS ... or Cingular Orange.) And, as long as you have an account with an SMS service provider that supports binary SMS into those networks (there is no binary SMS interoperability between these carriers in the US when you use GSM ... whereas this support is standard in the rest of the world). So, for practical purposes ... unless you are only dealing with MMS messages to subscribers of a particular carrier ... the only real option is to route the messages via an operator MMSC. I've yet to see a commercial service targeting MMS message delivery to USA subscribers. (In fact, it is rare in most of the world ... because the economic models aren't yet working. But in some parts of the world, you can get MMS connections to individual operators using protocols like MM7 ... which you'll see a lot of other threads out here about.) Without an MMS service provider or direct MMSC connection to an operator ... the lowly modem becomes the best path. I'm sorry, but we don't use any instant messaging services for support. We also usually restrict telephone support to sales engineering type questions. More in-depth questions usually work better in writing ... -bn | |||
| Nikihana New member Username: Nikihana Post Number: 5 Registered: 08-2006 |
Bryce, Thanks for the response - but I am still confused. Your previous email suggested that I could, indeed, send an MMS message via email through the nowsms gateway and your next email seems to contradict that. I did read the section about MMS works and I think I understand how it works. But I am lost trying to relate that to the issues around email/CDMA/GSM and operators in the USA :-(. Simply put - what prevents an MMS message routed to a cell phone via email from playing on the device? Is it the "unraveling" of the email message to extract the mms package? Is there a way to configure my mail server to package it correctly? Do the operators (verizon, cingular etc) prevent the email attachments from playing? Thanks for your help in advance. Srini | |||
| Nikihana New member Username: Nikihana Post Number: 6 Registered: 08-2006 |
Bryce, Just to clarify a bit...I can send an MMS message to a phone via email using the (phone#@carrier-domain) format. This seems to work on GSM as well as CDMA providers. I was wondering if I could send such a message via email from nowsms through an SMTP gateway instead of using a GSM modem... Thanks, Srini | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support Board Administrator Username: Bryce Post Number: 6380 Registered: 10-2002 |
Hi Srini, I apologise for any confusion. Your original question was very ambiguous ... and I did not interpret it the way that you asked. (I was interpreting it as an e-mail interface into NowSMS ... and you are asking about an e-mail interface OUT of NowSMS.) Most USA mobile operators do offer the ability for anyone to send an e-mail message to an MMS recipient by addressing the message to phonenumber@carrierdomain. However, in order to send such a message, you need to know which carrierdomain the phonenumber belongs to. And because of number portability, the only way to determine this is with a real time query to a service provider that can provide a phone number to carrier lookup (to the best of my knowledge, this is not free ... I know it is not free in the rest of the world, and I doubt that it is free in the USA). The reason that the USA operators offer free e-mail to MMS (and SMS) gateways is because in the US, subscribers are charged to either send or receive messages. In the rest of the world, subscribers are charged to send messages, but receiving messages is free. Therefore, in the case of e-mail to MMS or SMS, there is no one that can be charged. Anyway ... it is possible to configure NowSMS to use one of these types of links where messages get routed to phonenumber@carrierdomain. But it is generally only appropriate to do this for lab/demo environments where there are VERY SPECIFIC requirements. For example, I've helped customers in the US set this up when they wanted to input MM7 to NowSMS, and then get that message routed out to MMS via SMTP e-mail. To do this, you define an "MMSC Routing" with a connection type of "MM4 (SMTP)". Check "Generic E-Mail" as the message format. But there is the issue of needing to know which carrier to route a particular phone number to. If you have a small test setup, you can manually define that certain phone numbers go through certain routes. Or you can configure a dynamic routing callback in NowSMS, where NowSMS issues an HTTP callback to your application each time there is an MMS message to be routed ... and your application returns a response to indicate which route should be used. Bottom line ... I would not attempt this unless you have very specific requirements. -bn | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support Board Administrator Username: Bryce Post Number: 6381 Registered: 10-2002 |
Simply put ... ignorance. In the sense that these interfaces were not designed to be full featured gateway interfaces. Generally speaking, I don't think you can include a SMIL part (which specifies automatic playback) when routing a message through one of these gateways. The gateways that exist are designed to handle regular user-to-user e-mails, and convert them into an MMS format. They are NOT designed to accept an MMS that has been packaged into an SMTP format and convert it back to MMS with minimal format changed. | |||
| Nikihana New member Username: Nikihana Post Number: 7 Registered: 08-2006 |
Hi Bryce, Couple of quick questions as I get more familiar with the product. 1) I am able to send out an MMS message using the web interface. How can I do this programmatically? Is there an API that I can use? 2) I am trying to use a pre-paid card from Cingular in the modem, with no luck. I am able to use the sim card in a phone and send mms messages. I am also able to send mms messages with a tmobile sim card in the modem ( i.e. the SIM card and the modem both work, just not together :-)). I suspect that the cingular gateway settings may be incorrect. Can you verify that the settings are accurate for the US? Thanks & regards, Srini | |||
| Raj Nukala New member Username: Rajnukala Post Number: 5 Registered: 05-2005 |
Srini If you do not mind which modem are you using? I am in the process of purchasing a modem and want to be sure of which one I buy. Regards Raj | |||
| Nikihana New member Username: Nikihana Post Number: 8 Registered: 08-2006 |
Raj, I am using the Multitech quadband EDGE modem (MTCBA-E-U). http://buy.multitech.com/Retail/product.asp?catalog_name=Products&product_id=MTC BA-E-U&cookie%5Ftest=1 Hope this helps. Srini | |||
| Raj Nukala New member Username: Rajnukala Post Number: 6 Registered: 05-2005 |
Thanks For your reply | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support Board Administrator Username: Bryce Post Number: 6461 Registered: 10-2002 |
Hi Srini, 1.) The different APIs are discussed here: http://www.nowsms.com/documentation/ProductDocumentation/mms_notifications_and_c ontent/Submitting_MMS_Messages.htm 2.) Hmm ... I know of several customers using our default settings for Cingular, so I'm pretty confident that the settings are correct. But maybe there are different settings for prepay. I can't seem to find any of this information on-line. But I'm wondering something ... Cingular's prepay service is marketed as "GoPhone". And wasn't "GoPhone" originally the brand marketed by AT&T Wireless? If so, then perhaps they still use the old AT&T Wireless settings. Give those settings a try. Also, it would help if you could try to view the MMS settings in the phone that you can send MMS messages on using the prepay SIM. In particular, you want to try to see what the associated GPRS APN and MMSC Server URL are. (A username and password might also be required, but if you can find the GPRS APN name, a web search can often be used to find the other required information.) -bn | |||
| Nikihana New member Username: Nikihana Post Number: 9 Registered: 08-2006 |
Hi Bryce, Thanks for the info...How can I view the MMS settings on the phone? I am able to send an mms message using the cingular pre-paid card using the phone but not thru the modem... Thanks & regards, Srini | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support Board Administrator Username: Bryce Post Number: 6468 Registered: 10-2002 |
Hi Srini, It depends on the phone. First, give the AT&T Wireless settings a try. But if that doesn't work, then you need to try to get a closer look on the phone. Unfortunately, the user interface on the phone is different for every model. Usually, under a menu option for messages, there will be somewhere in the menu that will let you get to the message settings. Sometimes the information is under a more general part of the phone user interface that has various configuration settings. Look for anything that talks about MMS settings, in particular looking for a GPRS APN (access point name) setting, and an MMSC Messaging Server URL. If you can't find any of that, see if there is any configuration information that you can find about the browser on the phone (assuming it also works). Look for the GPRS APN and any proxy server information. If we can get that information, it might be enough to help refine some web searches to get the relevant MMS information. -bn | |||
