OTTAWA – Canada’s wireless service providers will introduce inter-carrier multimedia message services (MMS) to wireless phone customers across the country on July 1.
This is the broadest initiative of its kind in North America, says the the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA). The move will enable customers with MMS-capable mobile phones, regardless of the customer’s wireless service provider, to instantly send and receive messages with rich content to and from the MMS-capable phones of friends, family and colleagues.
MMS, commonly referred to as picture messaging or video messaging, extends text messaging to include photos, video clips, graphics, audio clips or combinations of these elements, and enables customers to send their messages to other MMS-capable phones or to any e-mail address in the world.
Until now, sharing of MMS messages was limited to customers using the same wireless provider. A customer on a different network would see a web link on their mobile phone through which they could then view the message from a PC. As of July 1, sending an MMS message will be as convenient and simple as sending a text message to a recipient’s 10-digit wireless phone number.
The overall solution for sharing multimedia messages across the Canadian carriers was made possible through the use of a comprehensive MMS interoperability platform by VeriSign, Inc., a provider of intelligent infrastructure services for the Internet and telecommunications networks. This solution helps overcome the numerous challenges of exchanging multimedia messages across diverse networks with different technologies and will be managed by VeriSign on an ongoing basis for the carriers.
"Multimedia messaging represents the next wave of growth in the burgeoning wireless communications sector," states Lawrence Surtees, Director of Telecommunications and Internet Research at IDC Canada Ltd. of Toronto, in a press release. "Wireless is currently the fastest-growing segment of the communications space and is expected to be the largest market this year. The intercarrier agreement enabling all Canadian wireless users to share MMS pictures and video clips is expected to stimulate rapid growth of this exciting phenomenon that heralds true mobile convergence."
"July 1 also marks 20 years to the day when Canada’s first cellular networks were switched on in 1985," said CWTA President & CEO Peter Barnes, referring to the launch of what was Rogers Cantel that year.
Canada’s wireless carriers offer network coverage to more than 95% of the Canadian population, and there are now more than 15 million wireless phone subscribers across the country. Text messaging volumes reached 115 million, or more than 3.7 million per day, for the month of March 2005.
The carriers include Aliant Mobility, Bell Mobility, Fido, MTS, NorthernTel Mobility, Rogers Wireless, SaskTel Mobility, Télébec Mobilité, Telus Mobility and Virgin Mobile.
