Mobile Messaging Technologies and Services: SMS, EMS and MMS, 2nd Edition

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Standardization

Standardization of telecommunications technologies and associated service enablers is of key importance for the development of communicating systems in a multi-vendor environment. Many parties such as operators, manufacturers, third party application developers, and sometimes regulators collaborate in the scope of standardization activities to produce technical specifications that are widely endorsed for the development of commercial solutions. SMS, EMS, and MMS are three mobile messaging services for which underlying technologies have been subject to significant standardization activities. Standardization does not mean designing from scratch all technologies required for enabling interoperable services. Instead, standardization means identifying the most appropriate elements in the basket of existing technologies in order to allow a rapid roll-out of the service, creating new technologies only when no appropriate solution exists.

Compared with other mobile messaging services such as SMS and EMS, the standardization picture for MMS has become very complex. Several standardization organizations have collaborated in order to produce stable technical specifications for MMS in a timely manner. Organizations that have been actively involved in the design of MMS standards are 3GPP and the WAP Forum. Since 2002, the WAP Forum has merged with other standardization bodies to form the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). Consequently, MMS activities of the WAP Forum have now been ...