Mobile messaging
A “killer application” of the mobile Internet
ITU’s newly published Report, “Internet
for a Mobile Generation”, highlights a number of different applications
currently available on mobile handsets. Some of the applications are already
widely used, while others are still developing their full potential. Two of the
main competing services are: the Wireless Application Protocol or WAP (see Box 1) and
i-mode (information mode), which was first developed on the
Japanese market. It is important to note that WAP is a protocol, rather than a
proprietary service limited to a single operator — many operators in Europe
and Asia offer WAP services. On the other hand, i-mode is the brand name for NTT
DoCoMo’s packet-based mobile Internet service.
 An SMS user can send a message during a
meeting, on the bus, or anywhere else simply by typing on the keypad of the
phone
ITU 020155/Nokia
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SMS takes the world
by storm
The success of mobile messaging has been phenomenal and a
surprise to both operators and users. The most widely used mobile data service
in the 2G world involves person-to-person data communications, mainly simple
text messaging and mobile e-mail. In North America, mobile e-mail has been taken
up primarily through Research in Motion’s “Blackberry” handsets,
originally designed for data only, but which are now equipped to support GSM
voice services too. In Japan, exchanging e-mail is popular among i-mode users,
while, in other regions using the GSM platform, the short message service (SMS)
has been extremely popular.
SMS is a two-way simple text service available on digital
networks, and typically enables messages with up to 160 characters to be sent or
received via the message centre of a network operator to a subscriber’s mobile
phone. The service is not unlike e-mail as it involves the asynchronous delivery
of text messages, with the difference that messages are delivered directly to a
mobile handset and can thus be received by the user anywhere and at anytime.
Once a message is sent, it is stored at the SMS message centre until it is
successfully delivered or “forwarded”.
SMS popularity is set to grow, according to the GSM Association,
which estimates that
24 billion SMS messages were sent over GSM networks in May 2002 alone, compared
with 15 billion a year earlier. It further estimates that 360 billion messages
will be sent by year-end 2002. Mobile messaging is expected to remain one of the
“killer applications” of the mobile Internet.
The ITU Report attributes the success of SMS to two main
reasons. The first is that for brief communications, SMS is less expensive than
mobile voice calls. The second is that SMS is a less intrusive form of
communication than real-time voice and lends itself better to many situations
where voice calls would be inappropriate. For example, an SMS user can send a
message during a meeting, on the bus, or anywhere else simply by typing on the
keypad of the phone. The SMS has been
particularly popular among youth, especially those with a limited budget for
voice calls. It has also been very successful in developing countries.
Box 1 — Wireless Application Protocol
WAP was born out of industry collaboration that began in
1997
between Motorola, Nokia, Ericsson and Openwave. WAP was one of the first
attempts to develop a standard for the delivery of Internet content to mobile
phones and personal digital assistants or PDAs. Currently, WAP is the de facto
standard on GSM networks and is also used to a certain extent in the United
States and Asian markets. In general, WAP over 2G has been neither a technical
nor a commercial success. Over a circuit-switched 9.6 kbit/s connection,
downloading Web pages is a slow and — owing to per minute billing —
expensive process, earning it the nickname of the “Wait and Pay” service.
Moreover, content formatted for WAP-enabled devices has been limited, largely
due to the complexity of WAP’s Wireless Markup Language (WML) for translating
Web content. Despite a huge vendor push to promote the technology, especially at
ITU TELECOM 99, most consumers perceived WAP as a technology waiting for higher
connection speeds. In contrast to the spontaneous success of SMS, it can be said
that WAP services suffered
in most cases from the negative consequences of premature “hype”.
ITU 020156/PhotoDisc
The main reasons
behind the relative failure of WAP as a mobile Internet platform on GSM 2G
networks can be summarized as
follows: extended waiting periods for downloading, ineffective billing models,
lack of content availability in WML and inappropriate (monochrome) interface for
viewing Web content. It is hoped that the always-on capabilities of 2.5 and 3G
networks will increase the functionality of WAP, by doing away with slow
downloads and
per-minute billing.
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Not only have operators been able to profit from
person-to-person SMS, but they have also found ways to charge for information
broadcasted to a large number of users via this service. For example, during the
2002 World Cup Football Games, many sites offered SMS updates for every goal or
final score. This enabled people at work or away from their television set boxes
or personal computers (PC) to keep abreast of the scores. Some users were even
willing to pay upwards of 50 US cents for every broadcast SMS received.
The delivery of SMS has also interested the airline industry,
with Singapore airlines being one of the first to offer in-flight SMS for
passengers: users are able to send SMS to any mobile phone in the world. Two-way
messaging will become available once airlines begin offering broadband in-flight
connections. Also in Singapore, SingTel is
expanding its SMS service to
ordinary home and office phones.
In contrast to WAP, the phenomenal growth of SMS was
predominantly user-driven, rather than the result of any targeted marketing
efforts. In fact, operators hardly expected this simple technology to become a
popular service and a significant revenue booster. Once the potential of SMS
became clear, however, companies began exploiting the broadcast mode and
offering a wide array of billable information services. These services include
local and international news, stock updates, weather forecasts, banking
information and travel
information. However, users have also been
receiving unwanted SMS and the prevention of mobile spamming is now high on the
agenda of many regulators (see www.nttdocomo.com/home/html
and www.soumu.go.jp/).
“Spam” mail is mail that is unsolicited by receivers, and
that is typically sent for the purpose of advertising the services of the
sender. This in itself may not be harmful, particularly where the service
provider sends advertising mails that match the preferences and interests of the
consumer; it may even be more appropriate and efficient for providers to adopt a
one-to-one approach to consumers. The problem arises however, when the mails
received are unwelcome; for instance in a receiving party pays (RPP)
environment. RPP is a billing option whereby the person receiving a call is
charged in addition to the person initiating the call (as opposed to only the
caller paying). Not only is there the factor of annoyance, but also that of the
cost and extra burden to the user’s system of files that can be large and
time-consuming to download.
 SMS evolution
Enhanced messaging service (EMS) and
multimedia messaging service (MMS)
As the phenomenal success of SMS seems to indicate,
person-to-person messaging will most likely continue to drive mobile data
revenues for some time. EMS and MMS are likely to become crucial drivers of the
mobile Internet.
EMS is similar to SMS in terms of the store-and-forward process,
but also includes additional features, such as the transmission of a combination
of simple melodies, pictures, sounds, animations, and modified text as an
integrated message. The combination of several short messages together will be a
key technical feature of EMS.
MMS, based on a new global standard, will provide more
sophisticated messaging than EMS and SMS, allowing users to send and receive
messages with formatted text, graphics, audio and video clips. MMS will require
new network infrastructure as well as MMS-enabled handsets. Unlike SMS and most
EMS, MMS are not limited to 160-characters per message.
MMS-type messages can be sent over 2.5G and 3G networks.
Currently being adopted by many network operators and handset manufacturers, MMS
will soon become a standard feature and the default messaging mode for mobile
phones. The first MMS-enabled products became commercially available in early
2002. First movers include: Westel, which began offering an MMS service in
Hungary in
cooperation with Ericsson in April 2002; Hong Kong’s leading cellular
operator, Hong Kong CSL Ltd (CSL); Swisscom, which launched its MMS service in
June 2002, free of charge for the first four months. Table 1 lists some of the
earlier commercial launches of MMS services.
Box 2 — Multimedia messaging service
A first in Singapore
On 6 September 2002, Singapore’s SingTel Mobile
announced the launch of its multimedia messaging service that will allow
its customers to benefit from content-rich and roaming services. With MMS,
SingTel Mobile’s postpaid customers can send photos with integrated text
and voice clips from their MMS mobile phones to other mobile phones.
Recipients will get an MMS message, if they are using MMS phones, or an
SMS notification to retrieve the MMS message via the Internet or e-mail.
MMS messages can also be sent directly to e-mail addresses. Users can
enjoy an enhanced news service with international sports and entertainment
news presented with accompanying pictures on their MMS phones. SingTel
Mobile is the only operator in the country to offer MMS roaming. The
service is initially available in Australia (through SingTel Optus) and
the Philippines (through Globe Telecom, a SingTel associate), with more
destinations to be added to the list. With MMS roaming, customers who
travel can take holiday pictures of themselves using their MMS phones and
send them instantly to their loved ones back in Singapore.
Source – SingTel.
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Table 1 — The commercial launch of MMS services
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| Country |
Operator |
Launch date (2002) |
| Norway |
Telenor |
12 March |
| Hong Kong, China |
Hong Kong CSL |
28 March |
| Germany |
Vodafone D2 |
18 April |
| Hungary |
Westel |
18 April |
| Portugal |
Vodafone Telecel
TMN |
11 May
22 May |
| Italy |
TIM |
21 May |
| France |
Orange |
30 May |
| United Kingdom |
T-Mobile |
1 June |
| Switzerland |
Swisscom |
3 June |
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Source: Global Mobile, 2002. |
Phones with built-in digital cameras are quite popular in Japan
and the
Republic of Korea, where services similar to MMS are already available. The
Republic of Korea launched its mobile picture and video messaging services in
April 2002. That country’s largest mobile operator, SK Telecom, doubled the
number of its users, whose phones have high-speed Internet access, from 6.96
million in 2001 to 12.97 million 2002. In June 2002, Japan’s J-Phone had 5
million camera-equipped “sha-mail” handsets in use on its network (see www.j-phone.com/h-e/index.html).
Subscribers wishing to use MMS services are finding the choice
of handsets fairly limited. Sony Ericsson T68i is a colour MMS handset available
on the market today (see www.sonyericsson.com/T68i/). Nokia launched its 7650
series mobile handsets in the summer of 2002.
 In February 2002, a number of key industry players formed the
MMS Interoperability Group, a coalition designed to ensure that MMS messages
flow smoothly between different
mobile service providers. The eight companies (Sony, Ericsson, Comverse, Nokia,
Motorola, Siemens, Logica and CMG) will develop systems to test interoperability
and address any technical problems as they arise. It is to be noted that SMS,
along with its successors EMS and MMS are not only person-to-person messaging
services, but also allow the distribution of content to mobile devices. In this
respect, they are a transmission protocol in the same manner as WAP. In fact,
many content providers currently base their services on SMS rather than WAP,
mostly due to the fact that premium content can be easily billed through SMS.
However, in the long run, as WAP and services like i-mode gain momentum
worldwide, the use of messaging protocols for the delivery of content services
will be limited.
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