The future’s bright, the future’s MMS, says Stanley Glancy after he checks out multimedia messaging, tomorrow’s technology that’s already here

“The medium is the message,” said Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian communications guru. Truer statements have rarely been uttered. The logical conclusion we can derive from this is that the more advanced the medium, the more enhanced the message will be. Nothing can provide a more complete picture than a picture itself, especially when there is a voice to explain the significance of it all. The truth of this has been proved time and again, and it has remained the constant endeavour of technologists the world over to coalesce the two media into a single entity and enhance communication as a whole. Multimedia messaging service (MMS) promises to do just that, enabling you to send messages through a medium that has been made simpler than writing.

Kunal Ramteke claims that Mumbai-based BPL Mobile already has more than 3,000 customers for its MMS service

What is MMS?
MMS is the most versatile messaging service, and is expected to emerge as a key technology as well as revenue earner in the near future. MMS enables rich content to be created in messaging; it can also function as a highly versatile platform for mobile applications and services.

MMS, as Kunal Ramteke, marketing controller for BPL Mobile puts it, is an evolved form of the traditional short message service (SMS). He says, “Here at BPL we call MMS an enhanced version of SMS. The enhancement is in the form of messages that can be sent by incorporating sound, images and other rich content, transforming them into personalised visual and audio messages.”

Video sequences, audio clips and high-quality images can be downloaded to the phone from WAP sites, transferred to the phone via an attached accessory (a digital camera) or received as an MMS message. Photos, sound and video clips can also be stored in the phone for later use.

These features, according to Ramteke, open up wide vistas for both private and corporate use. For example, a photographer in Jaslok Hospital, Mumbai, has come up with a unique way of minting money through MMS. His target market is the hospital’s maternity ward. As soon as a baby is born he offers to click and send the photo as a MMS message to the new born’s near and dear ones for just Rs 50 per message. Though it costs him just Rs 2! This is just one instance of how multimedia messaging is reshaping the landscape of mobile communication by making it more personal, more versatile, and more expressive than ever.

MMS supports standard image formats such as GIF and JPEG, video formats such as MPEG4, and audio formats such as MP3 and MIDI. Multimedia messaging requires high transmission speeds, which can be provided by GPRS (general packet radio service) and 3G (third generation) technologies. To support MMS technology, existing GSM networks need an MMSC (multimedia messaging service centre), similar to SMSC (short message service centre), which supports the transmission and reception of SMS messages.

Market scenario
The Indian MMS market is still at a nascent stage. In Mumbai, BPL Mobile launched GPRS technology almost a year back, but other service providers have not been as quick on the draw. Orange plans to make the most of the cricket world cup fever and has just launched their service. This is one reason why awareness of the technology is still very low. But Ramteke expects other players to jump on the bandwagon in less than six months. In fact, BPL is already in talks with Idea Cellular of Delhi, to extend this service to the northern region.

Ramteke feels that though the negative publicity created around MMS had initially made service providers wary about venturing into this space, it is something that can’t be avoided. In the current telecom environment, revenue from voice-based services is under severe pressure. SMS is already a significant revenue earner, but there is a need for an optional revenue stream. This is where data services come into the picture. Says Ramteke, “Voice is going to be commoditised. We also capitalised on SMS, like others. The pressure on these existing revenue streams called for a new strategy. We had two options: jump the gun and go in for 3G, or look at GPRS as an alternate revenue stream. We believe 3G is still a long way off, so we opted for GPRS.” BPL has already got more than 3,000 customers for its MMS service in the short time that it has launched its service in Mumbai.

Global scenario
According to a white paper published by Nokia, more than 62 billion SMS messages were sent worldwide on a monthly basis in 2002. This translates to a little more than $5 billion (Rs 24,000 crore) transaction revenue per month. The report goes on to add that MMS itself will be worth $20 billion (Rs 96,000 crore) per month by 2006. The mobile handsets market has been growing at a rapid year-on-year rate for the last few years. Market research firm IDC predicts that mobile handset wireless subscribers will number more than one billion by the end of 2003. Judging from this, it doesn’t require a very fertile imagination to calculate the extent to which the Indian messaging market will grow in a few years.

The technology
GSM, or global system for mobile communication, has become a buzzword in mobile communications. Across Europe and throughout much of the world, including India, GSM is the standard behind the new generation of digital mobile phones. GPRS is the core network or the pipe which supports data transmission on GSM. GPRS is a technology that combines the extensive reach of mobile telephony and power of the Internet to provide always-on, higher capacity, Internet-based content and packet-based data services. This enables services such as colour Internet browsing, e-mail on the move, visual communications, multimedia messages and location-based services. It is believed to be the stepping-stone from GSM to 3G cellular networks. GPRS enables service providers to offer faster data transmission via a GSM network within a range of 9.6 kbps to 171.1 kbps. The technology makes it possible for users to make telephone calls and transmit data at the same time. This is what enables a GPRS-capable mobile phone to simultaneously make calls and also receive e-mails. Two years back when GPRS came in there was no standardisation of the technology; also, there were not enough handsets available that supported the service. But according to Ramteke, today, close to 50,000 mobile phone users in Mumbai alone have GPRS-enabled handsets. In fact, BPL has already launched two levels of services. Enhanced GPRS for Rs 750 a month is a package comprising free Internet access, WAP and MMS, while plain GPRS for Rs 200 a month allows access to WAP and MMS. WAP was the first service that was launched which leveraged the GPRS pipe, but it never took off as expected. MMS is expected to neutralise the negative publicity created by WAP.

SMS to MMS
Though the basic concept of sending an MMS message can be compared to that of sending an SMS message, the difference in experience can be compared to what most of us experienced when colour television sets replaced black-and-white TVs. Though B&W was a good medium and did serve its purpose, it couldn’t elicit the emotional link between viewers and technology that colour does by producing a closer picture of reality. Most mobile service as well as handset providers Express Computer spoke to believe that MMS would have a similar impact on how consumers communicate in the near future. Judging by the frenzy of activity ranging from network operators readying their infrastructure to support MMS services, to new product launches of MMS-enabled handsets, it seems we are well along the path from SMS to MMS.

MMS at work

The next time you want to announce the arrival of the latest family member don’t call, use MMS instead. Here is what a cellular user did to break the good news to his relatives all over the world.

Step 1: User takes a picture of the new born and sends a MMS message to multiple recipients. Step 2: The MMS message is sent to the Multimedia Messaging Service Centre (MMSC) Step 3: A notification is sent to the recipient from the MMSC that a message is waiting. Step 4: The recipient initiates a WAP connection and then downloads the message; an acknowledgement is sent to the receiver by the MMSC.

Issues
However, this new technology comes with its own set of problems. Just like its sister technology WAP, MMS has been receiving a lot of negative publicity. MMS is typically thought of as a camera phone. But the camera is actually a means of creating a form of content. Content can also be created in other ways, and since it is inter-operable with the Internet, analysts envisage a huge content market once MMS proliferates into newer areas.

Phone prices are still very high for the price-conscious Indian market, but competition is expected to bring this down. Currently, MMS-enabled handsets are available for Rs 10,000 onwards. Still, the lack of MMS-ready handsets is a major problem faced by MMS providers. Also, many mobile phone users are unwilling to exchange their existing handsets for MMS-ready ones due to the cost factor. Every single GSM user can send SMS, but the same is not true with MMS. This can curtail growth in a big way. But Ramteke feels that in the early adopter segment there is a lot of peer pressure. Many bought MMS-ready handsets even before MMS was introduced, mainly for the digital camera but also as a fashion statement—a key growth factor for MMS. Once other players join the fray, a learning curve will materialise. This is expected to increase awareness about the service, which in turn will result in rapid adoption of the technology. Ease of use is not a concern area as there is no major difference between sending an SMS and an MMS. Ramteke opines that with the aggressive pricing that they have introduced (Rs 2 per message for the first 100 messages, and Rs 3 thereafter for each message sent) most people won’t feel the price pinch. Technological problems are not envisaged at this point of time. One advantage of GSM is that once the GSM standards body publishes the technological standards to be adopted, every single GSM operator has to implement it. Thus addressing the inter-operability issue between networks.

But this is not the case with MMSC, as the technology is proprietary. And so since there are no standards to be followed, each service provider has to develop their own MMSC standard. Nevertheless, Ramteke argues that since the core technology will always be GSM, and the basic MMSC technology is freely available it shouldn’t pose a major problem. Handset inter-operability problems have already been addressed, he says.

The Nokia 7650, which is currently the most popular handset among MMS users, has already undergone software upgrades to enable inter-operability.

CDMA
Though CDMA service providers are offering streaming video and high-speed Internet access—more than 150 Kbps—the fact is that there are no handsets available in India which can support streaming video at this point of time. As for high-speed Internet connectivity, Ramteke feels that it is impossible to support that kind of speed on existing networks, be it GSM or CDMA, unless the entire network is dedicated to data services.

Currently, there is no technology which enables inter-operability between CDMA and GSM in India; non-existence of standards will mean that proprietary technology will have to evolve for inter-operability between the two competing technologies. But GSM operators like Orange, Airtel and BPL control more than 80 percent of the cellular phone market share. Hence, as Ramteke puts it, the onus to develop such a technology is on CDMA operators.
Another hurdle is that as of now, CDMA service providers do not have the legal status to offer MMS on their handsets.

MMS tomorrow
Though naysayers have been deploring the technology without giving it a fair chance, MMS is an evolution in messaging which is an outcome of development in technology. We can only try to stop the tide when the ebb is low, but when it comes back in full force it is bound to gain ground in the powerful current that is generated. As Ramteke says, “When SMS was launched it was a service that was provided free of charge. We turned it into a revenue stream only when we saw the potential. Five years ago when SMS was still new, we would have been severely criticised if we had suggested it as an alternative revenue stream. Cynicism is part of any new technology.”

There are more than 140 GPRS networks in the world, which will move to MMS sooner or later. Person-to-person messaging, entertainment and content services are sure to play a major role in MMS. It is only a matter of time before these services make a complete transition to MMS. Criticism is a factor we have to take cognisance of. Opposition is something that you will meet. Every new technology does.