SAN FRANCISCO-The nation’s wireless carriers have agreed to provide consumers with multimedia messaging service interoperability, a move that industry watchers say will give a much-needed boost to MMS use in the United States.
The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association said the Inter-Carrier MMS Working Group Friday established a set of guidelines that will allow wireless carriers to phase in photo and video messaging services over time.
Lack of an interoperability agreement has been largely to blame for slow uptake of MMS services like video messaging and exchanging photos among U.S. wireless users, analysts say. The only carriers that have such agreements today are AT&T Wireless Services Inc., Cingular Wireless L.L.C. and T-Mobile USA Inc.
U.S. carriers signed a short message service agreement in 2002, leading to a dramatic increase in the use of text messaging. But Seamus McAteer, a senior analyst with Seattle-based consultancy MMetrics, warned that carriers shouldn’t expect such uptake of MMS services immediately.
“I think (increased MMS usage) will be marginal in the early days,” said McAteer. “It’s not going to have any significant impact for another two or three years.”
Unlike simple text messaging, which can be used on any number of devices, MMS can require high-tech phones with video and audio capabilities. Until more of those handsets are on the market, McAteer said, MMS activity won’t increase much.
“We’re talking about a subset of handsets that can support this service,” he said. “The industry is, to an extent, getting ahead of itself, whereas it was really behind in agreeing to SMS interoperability.”
The MMS Industry Working Group began meeting in May with the objective of identifying a common feature set that could be supported by all participating carriers. Major U.S. carriers are expected to support the new agreement by year’s end.
“I congratulate the members of the MMS Working Group on this landmark industry agreement,” said Steve Largent, CTIA president. “The wireless industry has proven today that it will set aside strong competitive differences in order to provide the customer with new and improved capabilities.”
In the wake of the announcement, Cingular Wireless said it had selected Mobile 365, a mobile messaging service provider, for its inter-carrier MMS interoperability solution.
“Cingular has taken a bold step in redefining the global MMS market by using Mobile 365 as an intermediary for inter-carrier MMS delivery,” said Neville Street, president and chief executive officer of Mobile 365. “Just as our interoperability services helped ignite the SMS market in North America, we expect that this arrangement will be a landmark event for the emerging MMS market.”
Mobile 365 said it delivers more than 1 billion mobile messages each month and handles more than 80 percent of inter-carrier text messages in the United States between GSM, CDMA and iDEN networks.
