MMS Full Form

MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service. This is a standard way of sending a picture and other formats of messages on a cellular network. Sometimes these messages are also referred to as PXT or Picture Messages. MMS standards are built on the core SMS (Short Messaging Service) standards.

Difference between SMS and MMS

The difference between SMS and MMS is that SMS messages can send only text messages. On the contrary, MMS can also send a variety of media like a single image or multiple images (usually slide shows), videos up to 40s in duration, and audio.

The most common application of the MMS is to send camera images that the camera-equipped mobile handsets have. MMS has not only personal applications like sharing of pictures but it is also used commercially by companies to send out entertainment and news. MMS is also used for the delivery of images, coupon codes, videos, products and other information commercially.

History

MMS was started by the telephony companies to collect a fee whenever their users sent out a multimedia message. This was developed in 1984. While the earlier use was mostly personal, MMS went commercial in 2002.

Technology behind MMS

The core technology that is behind MMS is SMS technology. The first thing that happens when an MMS message is sent is that the message gets encoded. This is then transferred to the provider’s servers. These servers are also known as store and forward servers. If the MMS recipient uses a different carrier from that of the sender, then the MMS store and forward server also act as a relay server. Then this relay server sends the message to the recipient provider’s store and forwards the server using the internet.

If the recipient’s handset cannot receive a multimedia message, then the recipient receives a URL (universal resource locator). This URL can be opened from any browser. This is a legacy method of accessing multimedia content.

Importantly MMS does not ever use the internet data that is provided by the provider. Only when the user clicks on the link in the message, does the internet data is consumed. MMS services usually have email and web-based gateways.

Challenges that are faced by the MMS system

While MMS is a great innovation over the SMS technology, there are still several challenges that it faces. The challenges are:

1. Adapting Content: The challenge is that there are many wide varieties of phones and the message created by one phone may not be fully ‘understood’ by other phones.

2. Message lists: there are no specific standards that are available to distribute messages to a large number of recipients at one time.

3. Bulk messaging: the MMS system does not allow for bulk messaging making it difficult for media companies to send out messages once to a large number of users.

4. Handset configurations: MMS is not as simple as SMS. MMS requires a number of parameters that need to be configured on the individual handsets and that needs to be done by the users themselves.

5. Size of the message: The standard per se does not mention the maximum size of a message, however, 300 kb is set by telecom operators for MMS 1.2 handsets and 600 kb for MMS 1.3 handsets.

Conclusion

MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service. This is a standard way of sending a picture and other formats of messages on a cellular network. MMS standards are built on the core SMS (short messaging service) standards. The difference between SMS and MMS is that SMS messages can send only text messages. On the contrary, MMS can also send a variety of media like a single image or multiple images (usually slide shows), videos up to 40s in duration, and audio.