The MMSC responds by transmitting the MMS message in an HTTP response to the MMS client, after which the subscriber is finally alerted that the MMS message is available.
The essential difference between immediate and deferred delivery is that the former hides the network latencies from the subscriber, while the latter does not.
There are two modes of delivery in MMS: immediate or deferred: Immediate delivery: When the MMS client on the mobile phone receives the MMS notification, it then immediately (without user intervention or knowledge) retrieves the MMS message from the MMSC that sent the notification. After retrieval, the subscriber is alerted to the presence of a newly arrived MMS message.
Deferred delivery: The MMS client alerts the subscriber that an MMS message is available, and allows the subscriber to choose if and when to retrieve the MMS message. As with the MMS submission, the MMS retrieval request, whether immediate or deferred, occurs with an HTTP request.
Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a store and forward messaging service that allows mobile subscribers to exchange multimedia messages with other mobile subscribers. As such it can be seen as an evolution of SMS, with MMS supporting the transmission of additional media types:
* Text
* Picture
* Audio
* Video
* Combinations of the above
Multimedia Messaging System (MMS) is the logical evolution of the Short Message Service SMS, a text-only messaging
MMS - Multimedia Messaging Service
system for mobile networks. MMS-enabled mobile phones enable subscribers to compose and send messages with one or more multimedia (digital photos, audio, video) parts. Mobile phones with built-in or attached cameras, or with built-in MP3 players are very likely to also have an MMS messaging client -- a software program that interacts with the mobile subscriber to compose, address, send, receive, and view MMS messages.
The MMS data flow starts with a subscriber using an MMS client on the mobile phone to compose, address, and send an MMS message to one or more recipients. MMS addresses can be either E.164 phone numbers (e.g., "+9826100702") or RFC 2822 e-mail addresses (e.g., "you@yourdomain.com").
The initial submission by an MMS client to the home MMSC (MMS Center) is accomplished using HTTP with specialized commands and encodings (which are defined in a technical standard specified by the Open Mobile Alliance ). Upon reception of the MMS message, the recipient MMSC (MMS Center) sends a notification to the recipient's mobile phone using either an SMS notification or WAP Push.
