ROME—The market for messaging services continues to lead the development of the worldwide wireless data industry, as shown by several news announcements.
First, the GSM Association released figures showing the massive and continuing success of short message services throughout the world. According to the group, 75 billion text messages were sent globally in the first quarter of this year alone, which is an increase of more than 50 percent over the same quarter last year. The association said the total number of messages sent this year should hit 360 billion, up from 250 billion sent last year.
“This growth is simply great news for all operators, especially those that have launched or are readying to launch GPRS data services today,” said Scott Fox, chairman of the GSM Association. “There is substantial potential as SMS evolves toward multimedia messaging services.”
Along these lines, the GSM Association is working to ensure the development of MMS services across the world. The group held an MMS Summit Meeting early this month, focusing on messaging interoperability between old and new handsets and creating a clear and easy user interface for the service. And many operators are going forward with the service—the GSM group said some carriers are planning MMS market introductions for this summer, with full launch by the end of the year.
Not to be left out, two Asian carriers announced deals for MMS services.
KT ICOM in South Korea purchased Comverse’s MMS service center to use in its UMTS network. The carrier plans a wide-scale deployment early next year. And Hong Kong CSL Ltd. announced it is using Nokia Corp.’s MMS service center for its MMS service, which the carrier recently launched.
But messaging innovation isn’t solely confined to the realm of MMS—Vodafone in Sweden announced it will allow its customers to send hand-written texts or sketches through mobile phones, SMS or faxes.
