What's the exact difference between "send MMS message" and "Multime...

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steven
New member
Username: Silenthunter

Post Number: 10
Registered: 02-2010
Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 08:14 am:   

I read the guide carefully, there's some questions.

1.If talk about WAP push,does it only related to "send multimedia content message"?

2.In Multimedia content message,could smil file be included? or could pre-compiled MMS message be include?

3.For MMS message sending instead of "multimedia content", any clue of how to send with WAP push?

4.In multimedia content message, after recieve push message,when retrieve content from URL, would the mobile phone recieve a standard MMS or just some "attachment" as it asked user to accept?

So my questions actually based on that I haven't get clear the exact difference between MMS message and "multimedia content message."

Hope my questions not bother, thanks!
Des - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Desosms

Post Number: 1899
Registered: 08-2008
Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 03:39 pm:   

Hi Steven,

Let me start with the question in your subject line...


quote:

What's the exact difference between "send MMS message" and "Multimedia content Message"




Forgetting about how it works "under the hood", and just focusing on the end user experience:

"Send MMS Message" sends an MMS message. This message is designed to be received by the MMS client in the receiving device. (In most cases, the MMS client presents the received message in the device's inbox which contains a mix of SMS and MMS messages.)

"Send Multimedia Content" packages the content object (images, video, sound files) and builds a simple web page (HTML for newer devices, WML for older devices) with links for the content. The receiver receives either an SMS text message or WAP Push message with an included link to view the web page that contains the content.

"Send MMS Message" is proper MMS. "Send Multimedia Content" is a kludge.

That said, why would you ever use "Send Multimedia Content"? In a perfect world, never (well, there are a very few specialised applications where it does make more sense).

However, in many parts of the world ... MMS is considerably more expensive than sending a text message that contains a link. Getting proper MMS delivery access to a wide range of subscribers in multiple countries can be extremely challenging.


quote:

1.If talk about WAP push,does it only related to "send multimedia content message"?




No.

"WAP Push" is a family of protocols that can be used for delivering content (and settings) to mobile devices.

"Proper MMS" is actually built on top of the "WAP Push" protocol.

However, when most people talk about "WAP Push", they are talking about WAP Push "Service Indication" messages. This is a simple message format that contains some text and a link for viewing associated content. The URL link address is usually not shown to the recipient, so the user generally just sees the text and a prompt to open the browser to view the associated content.

By contrast, if you use a standard SMS text message, the URL link address has to appear in the text of the message. Most modern SMS clients will automatically make the link work as a clickable link, so it works similar to a WAP push, but it's not as elegant, because dynamic URL links are typically randomly generated numbers and letters that have no meaning to the recipient.

As WAP Push is more elegant, why would you use a standard SMS text message instead of WAP Push Service Indication?

Well, the iPhone does not support WAP Push Service Indication messages, and the iPhone is a significant market for most multimedia content providers.

Also, support for sending WAP Push Service Indication messages is very limited in North America because of the mix of GSM and CDMA technologies.


quote:

2.In Multimedia content message,could smil file be included? or could pre-compiled MMS message be include?




SMIL will be ignored. HTML or WML becomes the presentation markup language as the content is displayed in a web browser instead of an MMS client.

A pre-compiled MMS can be used, but the content objects will be stripped out of it and used. SMIL will be ignored.


quote:

3.For MMS message sending instead of "multimedia content", any clue of how to send with WAP push?




I don't understand your question.

But you can probably find your answer here: http://www.nowsms.com/howmmsworks.htm

As I mentioned above, MMS delivery is a protocol that is built on top of WAP Push.

When NowSMS is configured to operate as an MMSC, it packages the MMS content as a dynamic URL link and sends an MMS notification (a special type of WAP Push) to the receiving device, telling the MMS client on the receiving device to fetch the MMS content from the supplied URL.

There are quite a few mobile operators that use NowSMS in this mode ... not to mention numerous mobile phone testing facilities and software developers.

However ... in the real world ... for the typical content provider ... they cannot use NowSMS in this mode. This issue is discussed in more detail in the article at http://www.nowsms.com/howmmsworks.htm. However, the short of it is that the mobile phones are preconfigured to send and receive MMS messages via a different APN than is used for web browsing. The reason for this is because MMS messaging charges are based on the number of messages, not the amount of data sent. As a result, this MMS APN is usually firewalled to prevent users from finding ways to access free data. This has the side effect of blocking MMS message delivery from independent MMSCs.

The alternatives are to:

a.) Send MMS messages through the operator MMSC using either a content provider/value added service provider account with a mobile operator using the MM7 protocol, or using a GSM modem.

b.) Use a kludge alternative such as multimedia content push.


quote:

4.In multimedia content message, after recieve push message,when retrieve content from URL, would the mobile phone recieve a standard MMS or just some "attachment" as it asked user to accept?




If sending as a standard MMS, with NowSMS as the MMSC (sending the MMS Notification/WAP Push for the MMS content), in most real world cases, the mobile operator will block the receiving device from being able to access the MMS content.

The multimedia content message works like I described above. The content objects are packaged into HTML and WML. The user receives either a plain text message or a WAP Push Service Indication message with some text and a URL link for viewing the content objects (with HTML or WML format) in a web browser.

The "How MMS Works" article is a bit old, but it does a pretty good job of explaining the technical issues: http://www.nowsms.com/howmmsworks.htm

--
Des
NowSMS Support
steven
New member
Username: Silenthunter

Post Number: 11
Registered: 02-2010
Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 04:17 pm:   

Your explaination is so perfect that I just don't know what to say ,but thanks! really!
steven
New member
Username: Silenthunter

Post Number: 12
Registered: 02-2010
Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 05:29 pm:   

Forgive me for a further question, I read the article:how mms works, and I could say the description in it is just going with my way of understanding, but I also leanred some other kind of descriptions from other place, those explainations also quite technical and seems more "up to date" according to what actual happens with some MMSC operators.

What I found in some MMSC operators technical articals, more and more likely to use "Mail" conception to describe MMS, it maybe hard to tell, I tried to use some examples to explain.

Some operators claim MMS is just like Mail service, every user has an internal mail address,though it's not necessarily known by them, these internal mail address is just like +49700004444@mymmsc.uk, with the head of a MSISDN NO. and on server side, MMS messages is just like internally processed with mail. though this is just a description, but actually, operators also provide some service that make MMS really to work together with email service.

I know, from born, MMS could be send to a real mail address, then today, more service were opened to user, e.g, use MMS to recieve email content or email push.

In history about 2002, a quite cool servece once be developed by a Company named ElectricPocket, one of there software Pixer, could even transfer among MMS to MMS, MMS to mail,Mail to MMS,Mail to Mail, of course this kind of function base on Treo phone from Handspring,and must use their own mail service of pixer.net, 2002 was quite early days of MMS application, but I feel to double-side transfer MMS with mail, is quite a possibility.

After that service closed by ElectricPocket, I never met any other live service examples to make it happen again, I think it may because that kind of service will be a hurt to Mobile operators, and operators themselves own that capability, but hide it for themselves application.

So my quiestion would be, is it close or far between MMS service and Mail service? I mean on operator side, not wireless transfer layer.

And is that any possibility to make a counter trandfer between MMS and Mail with self-build mail service, just like what had been done by ElectricPocket?

The remained webpage related to the sample is here:
http://electricpocket.com/products/pixer.html

the software package with user guide is still available, though that counter-transfer service disappeared without trace
Des - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Desosms

Post Number: 1901
Registered: 08-2008
Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 06:15 pm:   

Hi Steven,

I'm not familiar with the old pixer.net service. However, back in 2002 and into 2003, we ran a free MMS service that also supported e-mail interfacing. We had to shut it down because ultimately it was costing us too much money to operate.

I would suspect that Electric Pocket may have faced similar cost issues. However, you have to keep in mind that in their case, they were also the developer of the MMS client software. It is very likely that they may have added hooks to their MMS client to interface with their pixer.net service, in addition to the operator MMSC. If the service only supported users with their Pixer MMS client, then this would likely be the case ... as they could write their own extensions to also talk to their service.

When a user on one mobile operator sends an MMS message to a user on another mobile operator, the message does get transferred between the mobile operators using the MM4 protocol, which is SMTP (e-mail) based.

However, that doesn't mean an MMS service provider can use that interface. In other words, this particular e-mail interface is reserved for operator to operator communications.

That is unless your target mobile operator has opened MMS sending/receiving via e-mail. Most allow MMS users to send to e-mail. However, not as many allow sending e-mail to MMS ... the reason being financial. (In the USA, where users are charged for both sending or receiving messages, e-mail to MMS support from the mobile operators is more common.)

The fact that external MMSCs are blocked from sending MMS messages on most operator networks is what prevents a lot of the services that you describe from being practical.

--
Des
NowSMS Support
steven
New member
Username: Silenthunter

Post Number: 13
Registered: 02-2010
Posted on Thursday, March 04, 2010 - 05:40 am:   

Yes, ElectricPocket did has their own client software for Palm mobile phone, it hooked with their MMS-Email conter-transfer service, it can't be shared with other mobile phone.