OTTAWA-Canada’s wireless carriers introduced intercarrier multimedia message services last week. The initiative enables customers with MMS-capable mobile phones, regardless of the customers’ wireless service provider, to send and receive messages with rich content to and from MMS-capable phones of friends, family and colleagues.
The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association said the country’s four wireless carriers and mobile virtual network operator Virgin Mobile will use an MMS interoperability platform from VeriSign Inc. This solution helps overcome the challenges of exchanging multimedia messages across diverse networks with different technologies and will be managed by VeriSign on an ongoing basis for the carriers.
“The intercarrier agreement enabling all Canadian wireless users to share MMS pictures and video clips is expected to stimulate rapid growth of this exciting phenomenon that heralds true mobile convergence,” stated Lawrence Surtees, director of telecommunications and Internet research at IDC Canada Ltd.
Intercarrier MMS services are just beginning in the United States, with Cingular Wireless L.L.C. and Verizon Wireless, the two largest U.S. carriers, establishing intercarrier MMS services earlier this year. U.S. Cellular Corp. began offering MMS services with Verizon Wireless earlier this month.
Canada introduced intercarrier text messaging in spring 2002. Cross-border intercarrier text messaging with the United States followed less than a year later.
CWTA President and Chief Executive Officer Peter Barnes noted that the first cellular networks in Canada were switched on July 1, 1985. “In just two short decades, Canadians have truly become enamored of all things wireless, and the addition of intercarrier MMS is just one more example that highlights the scope of wireless services in Canada,” he said.
