MMS Architecture

The MMS Architecture is the set of standards used by the Multimedia Messaging Service in mobile networks. The standards are prepared by 3GPP.

Overview

MMSC Reference Architecture

The standard consists of a number of interfaces between components found in the mobile network:

MM1: the interface between MMS User Agent and MMS Center

MM2: the interface between MMS Relay and MMS Server

MM3: the interface between MMS Center and external servers

MM4: the interface between MMS Centers

MM5: the interface between MMS Center and HLR

MM6: the interface between MMS Center and user databases

MM7: the interface between MMS VAS applications and MMS Center

MM8: the interface between MMS Center and the billing systems

MM9: the interface between MMS Center and an online charging system

MM10: the interface between MMS Center and a message service control function

MM11: the interface between MMS Center and an external transcoder

]MM1

MM1 is the interface between a Mobile Station (MS) and an MMSC.

MM1 is used in the following actions:

The sender subscriber sends an MMS to the MMSC

The MMSC notifies the recipient subscriber that he/she has an MMS waiting for retrieval

The recipient subscriber retrieves the MMS from the MMSC

The MMSC notifies the sender that the recipient has retrieved the message

The recipient subscriber manages his/her mailbox in the MMSC (uploads MMS, deletes MMS, ...)

The MM1 interface is based on the WAP protocol. It includes the PAP notifications that are transformed to SMS's by the WAP gateway for the notifications.

MM2

MM2 is an interface between a MMS Relay (MMS-R) and an MMS storage database, two components of an MMSC platform.

MM3

MM3 is the interface between MMSC and external servers such as Email server or SMS Centers SMSC. This interface typically uses TCP/IP based protocols for e.g. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol ( SMTP )

Generally, it is the responsibility of MMSC to do the transformation of MMS multi-part binary data to MIME format of email in both the direction

MM3 is used in the following actions:

To exchange messages with external servers such as Email Server or SMS Centers

MM4

MM4 is the interface used to exchange messages between two different MMSCs. These MMSCs are generally located in two distinct Mobile Networks

This interface is also known as the MMSR interface in the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) standards.

MM5

MM5 is the interface between MMSC and other network elements like HLR or Domain Name Server. The communication over MM5 Interface is generally to fetch the routing information. MM5 has been defined by the 3GPP in TS 23.140 as a simple reference to Mobile Application Part.

]MM7

MM7 is the interface between MMSC and a value-added service provider (VASP).

The MM7 interface is used to send MMS from 3rd party providers (e.g., a bank sending a statement or an advertiser sending publicity). It is based on SOAP with attachments, using HTTP as the transport protocol. HTTP request shall be a POST.

The message is a MIME which encapsulates the SOAP envelope and the encoded attachments. The SOAP envelope is an XML where tags are the MM7 protocol data.

See also

ID-MM7

(source:wikipedia)

Multimedia Messaging Service

A multimedia message on a mobile phone,.

Multimedia Messaging Service, or MMS, is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from mobile phones. It extends the core SMS (Short Message Service) capability that allowed exchange of text messages only up to 160 characters in length.

The most popular use is to send photographs from camera-equipped handsets, although it is also popular as a method of delivering news and entertainment content including videos, pictures, text pages and ringtones.

The standard is developed by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), although during development it was part of the 3GPP and WAP groups.

History

The immediate predecessor to the MMS is the Japanese picture messaging system Sha-Mail introduced by J-Phone in 2001. It validated the concept of camera phone users willing to send picture messages from one phone to another.

Early MMS deployments were plagued by technical issues and frequent consumer disappointments, such as having sent an MMS message, receiving a confirmation it had been sent, being billed for the MMS message, to find that it had not been delivered to the intended recipient. Pictures would often arrive in the wrong formats, and other media elements might be removed such as a video clip arriving without its sound.

At the MMS World Congress in 2004 in Vienna, all European mobile operator representatives who had launched MMS, admitted their MMS services were not making money for their networks. Also on all networks at the time, the most common uses were various adult oriented services that had been deployed using MMS.

China was one of the early markets to make MMS a major commercial success partly as the penetration rate of personal computers was modest but MMS-capable cameraphones spread rapidly. The chairman and CEO of China Mobile said at the GSM Association Mobile Asia Congress in 2009 that MMS in China is now a mature service on par with SMS text messaging.

Europe's most advanced MMS market has been Norway and in 2008 the Norwegian MMS usage level had passed 84% of all mobile phone subscribers. Norwegian mobile subscribers average one MMS sent per week.

By 2008 worldwide MMS usage level had passed 1.3 billion active users who generated 50 billion MMS messages and produced annual revenues of 26 billion dollars.

Technical description

MMS messages are delivered in a completely different way from SMS. The first step is for the sending device to encode the multimedia content in a fashion similar to sending a MIME e-mail (MIME content formats are defined in the MMS Message Encapsulation specification). The message is then forwarded to the carrier's MMS store and forward server, known as the MMSC. If the receiver is on another carrier, the relay forwards the message to the recipient's carrier using the Internet.

Once the MMSC has received a message, it first determines whether the receiver's handset is "MMS capable", that is it supports the standards for receiving MMS. If so, the content is extracted and sent to a temporary storage server with an HTTP front-end. An SMS "control message" containing the URL of the content is then sent to the recipient's handset to trigger the receiver's WAP browser to open and receive the content from the embedded URL. Several other messages are exchanged to indicate status of the delivery attempt. Before delivering content, some MMSCs also include a conversion service that will attempt to modify the multimedia content into a format suitable for the receiver. This is known as "content adaptation".

If the receiver's handset is not MMS capable, the message is usually delivered to a web based service from where the content can be viewed from a normal internet browser. The URL for the content is usually sent to the receiver's phone in a normal text message. This behaviour is usually known as the "legacy experience" since content can still be received by a phone number, even if the phone itself does not support MMS.

The method for determining whether a handset is MMS capable is not specified by the standards. A database is usually maintained by the operator, and in it each mobile phone number is marked as being associated with a legacy handset or not. It can be a bit hit and miss since customers can change their handset at will and this database is not usually updated dynamically.

E-mail and web-based gateways to the MMS (and SMS) system are common. On the reception side, the content servers can typically receive service requests both from WAP and normal HTTP browsers, so delivery via the web is simple. For sending from external sources to handsets, most carriers allow MIME encoded message to be sent to the receiver's phone number with a special domain. An example of this would be PTN@messaging.carrier.com, where PTN is the public telephone number. Typically the special domain name is carrier specific.

Challenges

There are some interesting challenges with MMS that do not exist with SMS:

Handset configuration can cause problems sending and receiving MMS messages.

Content adaptation: Multimedia content created by one brand of MMS phone may not be entirely compatible with the capabilities of the recipient's MMS phone. In the MMS architecture, the recipient MMSC is responsible for providing for content adaptation (e.g., image resizing, audio codec transcoding, etc.), if this feature is enabled by the mobile network operator. When content adaptation is supported by a network operator, its MMS subscribers enjoy compatibility with a larger network of MMS users than would otherwise be available.

Distribution lists: Current MMS specifications do not include distribution lists nor methods by which large numbers of recipients can be conveniently addressed, particularly by content providers, called Value-added service providers (VASPs) in 3GPP. Since most SMSC vendors have adopted FTP as an ad-hoc method by which large distribution lists are transferred to the SMSC prior to being used in a bulk-messaging SMS submission, it is expected that MMSC vendors will also adopt FTP.

Bulk messaging: The flow of peer-to-peer MMS messaging involves several over-the-air transactions that become inefficient when MMS is used to send messages to large numbers of subscribers, as is typically the case for VASPs. For example, when one MMS message is submitted to a very large number of recipients, it is possible to receive a delivery report and read-reply report for each and every recipient. Future MMS specification work is likely to optimize and reduce the transactional overhead for the bulk-messaging case.

Handset Configuration: Unlike SMS, MMS requires a number of handset parameters to be set. Poor handset configuration is often blamed as the first point of failure for many users. Service settings are sometimes preconfigured on the handset, but mobile operators are now looking at new device management technologies as a means of delivering the necessary settings for data services (MMS, WAP, etc.) via over-the-air programming (OTA).

WAP Push: Few mobile network operators offer direct connectivity to their MMSCs for content providers. This has resulted in many content providers using WAP push as the only method available to deliver 'rich content' to mobile handsets. WAP push enables 'rich content' to be delivered to a handset by specifying the URL (via binary SMS) of a pre-compiled MMS, hosted on a content provider's web server. A consequence is that the receiver who pays WAP per kb or minute (as opposed to a flat monthly fee) pays for receiving the MMS, as opposed to only paying for sending one, and also paying a different rate.

Although the standard does not specify a maximum size for a message, 300 kB is the current recommended size used by networks due to some limitations on the WAP gateway side.

Interfaces

Main article: MMS Architecture

MMSC Reference Architecture

MM1: the 3GPP interface between MMS User Agent and MMS Center

MM2: the 3GPP interface between MMS Relay and MMS Server

MM3: the 3GPP interface between MMS Center and external servers

MM4: the 3GPP interface between MMS Centers

MM5: the 3GPP interface between MMS Center and HLR

MM6: the 3GPP interface between MMS Center and user databases

MM7: the 3GPP interface between MMS VAS applications and MMS Center

MM8: the 3GPP interface between MMS Center and the billing systems

MM9: the 3GPP interface between MMS Center and an online charging system

MM10: the 3GPP interface between MMS Center and a message service control function

MM11: the 3GPP interface between MMS Center and an external transcoder

See also

Short code

(source:wikpedia)

Short code

Short codes (also known as short numbers) are special telephone numbers, significantly shorter than full telephone numbers, that can be used to address SMS and MMS messages from mobile phones or fixed phones. There are two types of short codes: dialing and messaging.

Short codes are designed to be easier to read and remember than normal telephone numbers. Like telephone numbers, short codes are unique to each operator at the technological level. Even so, providers generally have agreements to avoid overlaps. In some countries, such as the United States, some classes of numbers are inter-operator (U.S. inter-operator numbers are called common short codes).

Short codes are widely used for value-added services such as television program voting, ordering ringtones, charity donations and mobile services. Messages sent to short code can be billed at a higher rate than a standard SMS and may even subscribe a customer to a recurring monthly service that will be added to their mobile phone bill until they text, for example, the word "STOP" to terminate the service.

Technology

Normal telephone numbers (following the E.164 standard) may be of any length, and so when dialed from landline telephones, the network must apply heuristics to determine when dialing is complete — in the US, for example, dialed numbers are generally seven or ten digits long, with an optional prefix of "1" (the country code for the US and Canada). On mobile phones, numbers are terminated with the "Send" or "Call" key and sent all at once over the network, so the network knows the end of the dialed number, and thus one can use short numbers without clashing with longer numbers.

For instance, on a land-line phone, one could not use the short code 12345, since then one could not dial the phone number 1-234-555-4626 (or any other number that shared the prefix 12345), but on a mobile phone there is no such ambiguity.

Short codes and service identifiers (prefix)

Short codes are often associated with automated services. An automated program can handle the response and typically requires the sender to start the message with a command word or prefix. The service then responds to the command appropriately.

In ads or in other printed material where a provider has to inform about both the prefix and the short code number, the advertisement will typically follow this format:

Example 1 - Long version: Text Football to 72404 for latest football news. Example 2 - Short version: football@72404

Short Code Directory

United States

888777 - Nixle

Regional differences

European Union

Common EU-wide codes are six digit long and start with 11. Examples include: 118xxx - directory services, 116xxx - emergency helplines. This is in addition to the EU-wide emergency number 112.

Australia

Short codes are six or eight digits in length, starting with the prefix "19" followed by an additional four or six digits and two. Communications Alliance Ltd and WMC Global are responsible for governing premium and standard rate short codes in Australia.Transactional and Subscription services require a double sms MO opt-in or Web based opt-in with an MO reply.

Belgium

Codes are four digits in length. You can have a look at the different categories here.

Canada

Canadian Common Short Codes can be five or six digits long. Common Short Codes beginning with a leading '4' are reserved for private use by wireless carriers. Four-digit Common Short Codes are not permitted due to handset incompatibilities. Short code-based messages vary between zero-rated (paid for by campaign), standard rate (user is responsible for standard carrier charges), and premium rate (varies, C$1-10). Canadian Short codes are governed by the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association.

Chile

Codes are three and four digits in length.

Czech Republic

Messages sent to/from these short codes are known as Premium Rate SMS. Codes are seven digits in length for MO and five (not billed) or eight (billed) for MT direction, starting with nine, while two or three (depending on billing type=MO/MT) trailing digits express the price, e.g. SMS sent to 9090930 is billed for Kč30. Leading three digits are purpose type prefixes (908 for micropayments, 909 for adult content and 900 for everything else), digits at position four and five determines the service provider registered by a network operator. There are also other four digit shortcodes, used by a network operators for service only purposes (operator dependent)

Denmark

Codes are four digits in length.

Dominican Republic

Codes are four or five digits in length.

Finland

Codes are five or more digits in length, usually five or six.

France

Codes are five digits in length. Starting digits define the cost of the service.

Germany

Codes are four or five digits in length.

Greece

Codes are five digits in length.

Hungary

Codes are four or five digits in length.

India

There are many companies in the Indian market who rent keywords,on a monthly basis, whose characters, on a typical mobile phone keypad, represent short codes. Short codes are five digits in length and have to start with the digit '5'. The five digits can be extended by three digits further representing three additional characters. Texts sent to these Short Codes are commonly referred to as Premium Rate SMS Messages and cost around Rs0.10 to Rs5 per text depending on the operator as well as the service. Any length of full message can be sent, ranging from 100–500 (some providers only support).

Indonesia

Codes are four digits in length with Rp2000 premium price.

Republic of Ireland

Short codes are five digits in length, and start with 5. The second digit generally indicates the maximum price, with 0 = completely free, 1 = standard text rate only, 3 = €0.60, and 7 having no maximum. Codes beginning 59 are ostensibly intended for adult services, but few if any of these codes are used.

Italy

In Italy short codes have no fixed length, starting from three digits up to five. They all start by the digit "4", which is designated by a local telecommunications law for "network services". Widely-known short codes are in the 48xxx range, commercial ringtones and mobile stuff download.

Lithuania

In Lithuania short codes also have no fixed length, starting from three digits up to five. They all start by the digit "1", which is designated by a local telecommunications law for "network services".

Malaysia

Codes are five digits in length, start with "2" or "3", premium pricing from RM0.30 up to 10.00. Codes are MT billed so subscription services are allowed. Upon service description approval by mobile operators, dedicated codes are generally live in 4 weeks, and shared codes after 1 week.

Morocco

Code are four keys digits in length.

The Netherlands

Codes are four digits in length.

Nigeria

Codes are four to five digits in length.

Norway

Codes are four and five digits in length.

New Zealand

Codes are three and four digits in length.

Panama

Codes are four digits in length.

Poland

Commercial codes are five digit long (1xxxx) and are reachable from both mobile and fixed networks. Calls to short codes - from any type of network - are routed based on the location of the number originating the call; hence, if wishing to reach a particular geographical area, the subscriber might need to prefix the short code with an appropriate area code.

Russia

Codes are four digits in length. The cost of the call or SMS to the short number varies from 1.2 to 300 rubles, depending on the number and the carrier.

Serbia

Codes are four digits in length.

Singapore

Codes are five digits in length.

South Africa

Codes are five digits in length. Short codes will start with either a "3" or "4". For example, 34001 or 42001. Each short code or short code range (a range will generally be 34000 to 34009) are assigned specific tariffs or end user prices (EUP). The tariff charges can range from R0.50 to R30.00 on mobile originated billing and from R0.50 to R50.00 using mobile terminated billing.

Spain

Codes are four digits in length.

Sweden

Codes are five digits in length.

Taiwan

Codes are usually four digits in length, starting with digits "19".

Turkey

Codes are four digits in length.

United Kingdom

Codes are five digits in length, starting with 6 or 8. The range of codes may be expanded in time to use other leading digits such as 7 and 4. Adult related mobile services must use codes starting with 69 or 89. Mobile operators sometimes use proprietary codes (either with a different leading digit or shorter in length for their own use). SMS shortcodes are often owned by holding companies who then lease them out to service providers and advertisers to promote SMS services, charitable fundraising and marketing promotions such as news alerts, voting and quizzes. Shortcodes can also be used to deliver additional content or a mobile URL link that when prompted opens the mobile web browser linking the user to a mobile web page. Premium services use codes that can be set to deliver a charge to a participant’s mobile phone (in accordance with the service provider’s terms of service). Other codes (typically used by advertisers) can be free to receive “your standard rate applies” or free to send and receive. UK Premium rated SMS services are regulated by PhonepayPlus. All charges and associated terms linked to a premium code should be transparent to the consumer. To stop a subscription based shortcode service text the word 'STOP' to the shortcode number.

United States of America

As of May 31, 2006, the standard lengths for interoperable short codes are five and six digits. Carriers use short codes with fewer digits for carrier-specific programs - e.g., "Text 611 to see how many minutes you have remaining on your plan." Codes starting with 1 are not permitted. Common short codes in the U.S. are administered by NeuStar, under a deal with Common Short Code Administration - CTIA. Short codes can be leased at the rate of $1000 a month for a selected code or $500 for a random code. Some carriers assign a subset of their carrier-specific codes to third parties. For example, 4 digit codes on T-Mobile's network are reserved for a "Beta test service" or "Free to end user" marketing campaigns.

Alternatives to short codes for SMS reception

An alternative to inbound SMS is based on long numbers (international number format, e.g. +44 7624 805000), which can be used in place of short codes or premium-rated short messages for SMS reception in several applications, such as television voting, product promotions and campaigns. Long numbers are internationally available, as well as enabling businesses to have their own number, rather than short codes which are usually shared across a number of brands. Additionally, long numbers are non-premium inbound numbers.

(source:wikpedia)

SMS spoofing

SMS spoofing is a relatively new technology which uses the short message service (SMS), available on most mobile phones and personal digital assistants, to set who the message appears to come from by replacing the originating mobile number (Sender ID) with alphanumeric text. Spoofing has both legitimate uses (setting the company name from which the message is being sent, setting your own mobile number, or a product name) and illegitimate uses (such as impersonating another person, company, product).

How SMS spoofing is carried out

SMS Spoofing occurs when a sender manipulates address information. Often it is done in order to impersonate a user that has roamed onto a foreign network and is submitting messages to the home network. Frequently, these messages are addressed to destinations outside the home network – with the home SMSC essentially being “hijacked” to send messages into other networks.

The impact of this activity is threefold:

The home network can incur termination charges caused by the delivery of these messages to interconnect partners. This is a quantifiable revenue leakage.

These messages can be of concern to interconnect partners. Their customers may complain about being spammed, or the content of the messages may be politically sensitive. Interconnect partners may threaten to cut off the home network unless a remedy is implemented. Home subscribers will be unable to send messages into these networks.

While fraudsters normally used spoofed-identities to send messages, there is a risk that these identities may match those of real home subscribers. The risk therefore emerges, that genuine subscribers may be billed for roaming messages they did not send. If this situation occurs, the integrity of the home operator’s billing process may be compromised, with potentially huge impact on the brand. This is a major churn risk.

The legitimate use cases for SMS spoofing include:

A sender transmits an SMS message from an online computer network for lower more competitive pricing, and for the ease of data entry from a full size console. They must spoof their own number in order to properly identify themselves.

A sender does not have a mobile phone, and they need to send an SMS from a number that they have provided the receiver in advance as a means to activate an account.

An SMS Spoofing attack is often first detected by an increase in the number of SMS errors encountered during a bill-run. These errors are caused by the spoofed subscriber identities. Operators can respond by blocking different source addresses in their Gateway-MSCs, but fraudsters can change addresses easily to by-pass these measures. If fraudsters move to using source addresses at a major interconnect partner, it may become unfeasible to block these addresses, due to the potential impact on normal interconnect services.

Legality

In 2007, The UK premium rate regulator, PhonepayPlus (formerly ICSTIS) concluded a public consultation on anonymous SMS, in which they stated they were not averse to the operation of such services. However, from 2008 PhonePayPlus are introducing new regulation covering anonymous SMS which will require anonymous SMS service providers to send a follow-up message to the recipient stating that a spoofed SMS has been sent to them, and operate a complaints helpline. It is illegal in Australia.

Protecting users from SMS spoofing

If a user can prove that their SMS sessions have been spoofed, they should contact both law enforcement and their cellular provider, who should be able to track where the SMS messages were actually sent from. A user may also modify the phone's settings so that only messages from authorized numbers are allowed. This is not always effective since hackers could be impersonating the user's friends as well.

Examples of SMS spoofing

Messages sent from Google are sent with the Sender ID "Google".

Skype sends messages from its users with the mobile number they registered with. Note that when a user attempts to "reply" to the SMS, the local system may or may not allow the replying message to be sent through to the spoofed "origin."

A user who does not have a mobile phone attempts to sign up for a Foxytag account, which requires an SMS from a phone number that the user registers with. A dynamically assigned number from an anonymous SMS service will not work because the user is not given the dynamic number in advance to register with.

The Asian School of Cyber Laws (Pune) recently conducted experiments in SMS spoofing at the national and international level. They were able to successfully spoof SMS messages and make them appear to come from other people's cellular phones. These people were using GSM based cellular phone services in various parts of India and other Asian as well as African countries.

Nitesh Dhanjani discovered a security vulnerability when sending a spoofed SMS message to Twitter. Twitter used the SMS originator to authenticate the user. Nitesh used hoaxMail to spoof the SMS message and therefore could trick Twitter to post the message on the victims Twitter page.

(source:wikipedia)