Evolution of Messaging

The Short Message Service (SMS) is a technology that was introduced in the early 1990s when the Internet was still unknown to the general public. SMS can be seen as the starting point of convergence between the Internet and the mobile world. In fact, long before the appearance of the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and other ways to access the Internet, wireless users were receiving simple information such as stock quotes, weather, train schedules, flight information, and access to e-mail using SMS. The widespread use of SMS is mainly due to the ability of young people to master the user interface and their desire to communicate cheaply with their friends even in situations where a phone call would not be possible. The popularity of SMS has definitely triggered the general interest in mobile data solutions and has shown to the industry the advantages of "always on" services, setting the stage for more evolved services.
The introduction of the SIM application toolkit standard opened a set of new opportunities: service providers can change or download applications in the wireless device over the air, and the user can be offered a menu-based choice of services, as well as support for new services and advanced security features such as those required for banking applications. However, at first only GSM subscribers could benefit from it and suffered all the inherent limitations of the SMS bearer: for example, limited bandwidth available and short message length.
The effort to overcome these constraints and allow wireless users easier access to Internet content regardless of the wireless technology led to the creation of the WAP standard. However, its popularity is still low, and WAP's true potential will be exploited when 2.5G and 3G packet switched services are introduced on a large scale.In the meantime, while WAP was being developed, SMS evolved. Proprietary protocols have appeared, such as Nokia's "Smart Messaging," and then standards were formed, such as Enhanced Message Services (EMS). EMS allows simultaneous downloading of ring tones, icons, and text, exploiting the current SMS network infrastructure.
The Mobile Station Application Environment (MMxE) standard, currently being defined by3GPP, will speed up the convergence between the Internet and the wireless world. MMxE aims at creating a standard environment for wireless applications by defining a Java environment on the phone and incorporates SIM card technology. In addition, MMxE supports standard Internet protocols for transport, security, and applications. Thanks to MMxE, in this environment, the wireless user has new possibilities that are currently available only to laptop and desktop computer users (e.g., download client applications such as interactive games, execute services on remote servers, and interact with another MMxE user in a variety of scenarios). MMxE is a powerful enabling technology for the multimedia message service (MMS) that will support messages combining text, images, sounds, and video clips in a variety of formats. MMS will be the first mobile service to utilize open Internet standards for messaging, such as multipurpose Internet mail extensions (MIME), Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).