U.S. Cellular’s 5 million subscribers can send photos and other content from their handsets to users on Verizon Wireless’ network, the carrier said Wednesday.
The Chicago-based operator announced it has become interoperable with multimedia messaging service offerings from Verizon Wireless, the nation’s second-largest carrier. Messaging provider Mobile 365 is powering MMS interoperability for both carriers.
In an effort to spur wireless data usage, U.S. carriers have worked to establish interoperability since agreeing to a set of inter-carrier MMS guidelines last fall. Recent agreements seem to have helped such services gain traction, with photo-sharing steadily increasing among users in recent months.
Almost 13 million U.S. subscribers sent photo messages to other phones or e-mail addresses from their handsets in March, according to mobile usage measurement firm M:Metrics.
“As with SMS, we project that interoperability will facilitate the rapid market adoption of MMS in the U.S.,” said Neville Street, president and chief executive officer of Mobile 365. “Having recently announced deals with three other major U.S. operators, and now the addition of U.S. Cellular’s customer base, we believe that most operators will now follow suit and open their networks to outside MMS traffic.”
