The last time you sent a photo message of your Gold Coast vacation to your family and friends, did they delightedly call you back on your mobile phone? And when you sent an MMS Christmas greeting to your faraway cousin, did he immediately call you back? It’s not just your family member or cousin who calls back on receiving an MMS. It has been found that 70 percent of all person-to-person MMS generate a voice call in response.
With SMS, you can send only what you tap into the keypad, whereas with MMS you can send pictures, formatted text, graphics, audio clips and even video clips. Typically to send and receive MMS, you need the following:
- A camera phone preferably with video recording capability.
- A GPRS or a 3G connection. With a 3G connection, MMS settings are automatic. With the GSM network, you have to request GPRS from your carrier, which will send you the MMS settings by an SMS.
To send photo messages, your phone should have MMS capability. You don’t necessarily need a camera phone as long as you can download pictures or video clips onto your phone. And to receive photo messages, your phone doesn't need to have MMS capability or support the media type. The network will try to convert the message into something that can be displayed. In certain cases, you will get a text message just telling you the location. You can also send photo messages to email addresses and vice versa.
Most carriers popularly refer to MMS as photo messaging. But photo messaging is just the beginning. You can watch weather reports with images or monitor stock quotes using diagrams, or even watch a batsman getting out. MMS is an open standard and supports any of the following and more:
- Standard image formats, such as JPEG and GIF.
- Audio formats, such as MP3 and MIDI.
- Video formats, such as MPEG4.
How do carriers charge for MMS? Even though MMS requires GPRS for transport, most carriers won’t charge you for GPRS or airtime. MMS is charged on a per-message basis. Most carriers have one flat rate for MMS, whereas others have two prices — one for video MMS and one for non video.
You can send MMS only after you have configured your mobile phone with the correct settings. If you don’t have the settings, you must request them from your carrier. The carrier usually sends you the settings as a text message.
Most people have experienced some difficulty when sending video MMS. That’s because some video phones record up to 10 minutes of video. Most carriers do not deliver large video clips. To ensure that your video can be sent with multimedia messaging, go into the settings within the video recorder option on your handset and change the setting to the shortest option. Also, remember that not all carriers have the capability for MMS or inter-carrier MMS messaging, since for MMS to be deployed, carriers have to upgrade their network infrastructure.
Like text messages, photo messages are usually delivered quickly, but not in real time. MMS also uses a store and forward procedure and in some cases may take up to 24 hours for delivery.
MMS is becoming an increasingly important source of information for news stations and crime investigators. While amateur videos helped describe the 2004 December tsunami, mobile phones with video capability have become reliable sources of footage of the 2005 London bombings. As more people take up MMS, it’s more likely that a bystander at an unexpected news event will be carrying a mobile phone instead of a video camera.
O2 is one such telecom company headquartered in London, offering MMS services. You can call on
O2 Contact Number to get in touch with its dedicated team.