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P800 Smartphone
White Paper, May 2002
28
Several sounds and melodies can be inserted in one message, and they can be combined with
pictures.
Pictures, animations and formatted text
Phones supporting EMS include a set of predefined pictures for inserting in SMS messages. New
pictures and animations are downloaded from the Internet or received in SMS messages.
Pictures can be created and edited in the phone using a built-in Picture Editor. Several pictures
can be inserted in one message, and they can be combined with sounds and melodies. The
users can format text in messages with different styles and sizes.
Concatenated messages
A part of the EMS standard is the support for concatenated messages, which means that the
phone is able to automatically combine several messages both when creating and receiving
EMS. This is useful to be able to build and display messages with rich content, since the amount
of information in each SMS is limited by the SMS standards.
New possibilities with messaging
The EMS standard is now a part of the SMS standard and supported by the major network
operators and mobile phone manufacturers. This universal approach enables a fast penetration
and development of new services and applications within messaging.
Compatible with SMS standards
Users will find EMS as easy to use as SMS. At the moment 15 billion SMS messages, are sent
every month worldwide. Roughly 80% of this traffic is user-to-user i.e. mobile phone users
sending short messages to each other using the keypad of the phone to enter text. The remaining
20 % is shared by downloads and notifications of different kinds.
The Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS) was first submitted to the standards committees by
Ericsson. Ericsson presented the outline structure of EMS to the relevant ETSI/ 3GPP
committees. The major mobile phone manufacturers and most operators are actively contributing
to the 3GPP standards. Hence the EMS standards have evolved and are now stable and
complete as part of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) technical specification.
An EMS message can be sent to a mobile phone that does not support EMS, or only supports
part of EMS. All the EMS elements i.e. text formatting, pictures, animations and sounds are
located in the message header. The EMS contents will be ignored by a receiving phone that does
not support the standard. Only the text message will be displayed to the receiver. This is true
consumer-friendly standardization. EMS is compatible to SMS across most of the range of mobile
phones from the oldest to the newest. Some companies in the mobile phone industry have
developed their own messaging technologies, which only work with their own phone models.
Network operators are in favour of EMS because it is universal – many of the major mobile phone
manufacturers are constructively improving and developing the EMS standards even further for
implementation in their products.
Examples of EMS contents and applications
A wide range of contents, applications and services may be developed. Below is a list of
examples and areas where messaging can be enhanced with EMS: