Just got your MMS-capable phone and realised that your first multimedia message didn’t show up on your friend’s phone? No, it wasn’t because her phone’s too old, nor was it due to incorrect MMS settings.
From the consumer’s point of view, MMS is a feature that lets us users send and receive rich messages that could contain a combination of text, images, graphics and audio clips. But for the network provider, trying to get MMS to work on other networks using a different brand of MMSC (Multimedia Service Centre) can be a problem.
But there’s good news on the horizon. Nokia and Tecnomen, a provider of value-added service systems for operators, are the first companies to experience interoperability of their MMSC products. Finnish mobile networks Sonera and Radiolinja inaugurated this interconnectivity, which allows MMS messages to be seamlessly sent and received between different operators irrespective of the brand of hardware used.
So what does this exactly mean for all of us? By removing the barriers of current incompatibilities, there will be no restrictions and worries as to whether the other end will receive that special message of yours - as long as you and the receiver has an MMS-compatible handset and the network provider supporting this.
Olli Oittinen, Vice President of Nokia, expects “international MMS interconnection across Europe and Asia to be a reality by second half of 2003”. We here at iMobile certainly hope so! :)
