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White Paper T610/612
11
EMS (Enhanced Messaging Service)
EMS uses existing SMS infrastructure and industry
standards, keeping investments to a minimum for
operators and providing a familiar user interface and
compatibility with existing phones.
Sounds and melodies
EMS gives the user the ability to send and receive
melodies. These can be pre-defined sounds, downloaded
from the Internet, received in SMS messages or
composed by the user on the phone keypad or a PC.
Several sounds and melodies can be inserted in one
message, and they can be combined with pictures.
Pictures and animations
Phones supporting EMS include a set of pre-defined
animations. New pictures and animations can be
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.
Messaging using EMS
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.
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.
Huge business potential
Network operators can now enhance their services and
attract more customers by offering pictures, animations,
ring signals and melodies for download at their portals.
Operators can charge more per EMS message since it
contains more data. Thereby EMS adds more value to the
operators and to the end users.
Standards
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
standard has evolved and is now stable and complete as
part of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)
technical specification.
EMS dynamics
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.
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.
User-to-user message
Messages usually originating from the keypad of a
mobile phone can include pictures, melodies, formatted
text with EMS.
Voice and e-mail notifications
Notifying mobile phone users that they have new voice
or fax mail messages waiting - including icons or