BEDMINSTER, N.J.-A new multimedia messaging service interoperability agreement will allow Verizon Wireless and Leap Wireless International Inc. subscribers to exchange photos and video clips, the carriers said.
The service is powered by wireless messaging company Mobile 365, which supports the CDMA2000 1x network standard used by both carriers. Verizon Wireless is also MMS-interoperable with Cingular Wireless L.L.C. and U.S. Cellular Corp.
Hoping to bolster flattening revenues from voice services, U.S. carriers have been scrambling to establish interoperability since agreeing to a set of inter-carrier MMS guidelines last fall. Recent agreements seem to have helped drive applications such as photo messaging, which has gained steady traction during the past few months, according to data from mobile usage measurement firm M:Metrics. Almost 13 million U.S. subscribers sent photo messages to other phones or e-mail addresses from their handsets in March, the company reported.
“In addition to encouraging the proliferation of wireless picture messaging, these types of inter-carrier agreements are in the best interest of customers who want to be able to send and receive pictures with wireless customers outside their respective carrier’s network,” said Jim Straight, Verizon’s vice president of wireless Internet and multimedia. “We believe that picture messaging between customers on different wireless networks holds as much promise as inter-carrier text messaging did when it was first introduced a few years ago.”
