Mobile Messaging Technologies and Services: SMS, EMS and MMS ...

30 Mobile Messaging Technologies and Services
mature stage, and evolve over time. For this purpose, this chapter introduces the working
procedures of organizations outlined below and provides an insight of their organizational
structure in terms of working groups. In addition, rules for numbering/referencing messaging
standards are explained and illustrated with examples.
Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP): 3GPP is not a standardization development
organization in its own right but rather a joint project between several regional
standardization bodies from Europe, North America, Korea, Japan, and China. The
prime objective of 3GPP is to develop UMTS technical specifications. It is also
responsible for maintaining existing GSM specifications and developing further GSM
extensions (e.g., GPRS). This encompasses the development of widely accepted technologies
and service capabilities. 3GPP is strongly involved in the development of messaging
standards (general service requirements, architecture, formats and codecs, and several low
level technical realizations).
Third Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2): 3GPP2 is another standardization
partnership project established out of the International Telecommunication Union’s
(ITU) International Mobile Telecommunications ‘‘IMT-2000’’ initiative. The role of
3GPP2 is to produce specifications for services deployed in several North American
and Asian markets with focus on next generation CDMA networks. In the scope of this
project, 3GPP2 looks at refining requirements for MMS and designing alternative
realizations of interfaces defined in 3GPP and OMA standards.
GSM Association (GSMA): GSMA is a global trade organization that represents the
interest of several hundreds of GSM mobile operators. The association role consists of
promoting, protecting, and enhancing the interests of GSM operators. For this purpose,
GSMA publishes a number of technical recommendations that are widely endorsed by the
GSM community.
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF): IETF is a large community of academic and
industrial contributors that defines the protocols primarily used on the Internet. Messaging
services in the mobile world also rely on several IETF protocols.
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): W3C is a standardization body that concentrates on
the development of protocols and formats to be used in the World Wide Web. Well-known
formats and protocols published by W3C are the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and
the eXtensible Markup Language (XML). Mobile messaging services also rely on proven
W3C formats.
WAP Forum: the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Forum was a joint project for the
definition of WAP technical specifications. This encompassed the definition of a framework
for the development of applications to be executed in various wireless platforms.
The WAP Forum produced the initial MMS specifications for the support of MMS in the
WAP environment. The WAP Forum does not exist anymore and its activities have been
transferred to the Open Mobile Alliance.
Open Mobile Alliance (OMA): OMA is a standardization forum established in June 2002.
Activities of several existing standardization bodies including the ones of the WAP Forum
(MMS and others) have been transferred to OMA. OMA is therefore actively involved in
maintaining MMS standards designed by the WAP Forum and producing new standards
for next generations of MMS devices.