The first edition of this book was published in late 2002. It covered SMS, the Enhanced
Messaging Service (EMS), and MMS. At that time, SMS was already a very successful
service and MMS was emerging. Following the growing interest in MMS, I published a
second book dedicated to MMS in late 2003. The second edition of this book builds up from
the two previous books. All chapters have been completely revised according to the most
recent developments in standardization, but also according to my own experiences, specifying
embedded messaging solutions for a manufacturer of mobile devices and in designing
MMS solutions for a large group of operators.
The first chapter of this book introduces the evolution of mobile telephony from its origins
with the deployment of first generation systems, followed by the introduction of second
generation systems supporting digital communications and packet-based transmissions.
Emerging third generation systems are also described along with the latest developments
in the standardization of techniques for digital rights management. Chapter 2 proposes to
demystify the ‘‘too often’’ obscure structures and procedures of standardization organizations.
It is of key importance to understand how these organizations produce the necessary
messaging standards in order to design interoperable commercial solutions. Chapter 3 is
dedicated to the Short Message Service. Firstly, it describes major use cases and quickly
progresses into the technical details of the service. Chapter 4 focuses on the standard
application-level extension of SMS known as the Enhanced Messaging Service. It explains
how to create rich-media content and how to distribute this content over SMS as a transport
bearer. Chapters 5 and 6 are entirely dedicated to the Multimedia Messaging Service.
Chapter 5 explains the service use cases, the overall architecture, and describes how
multimedia messages can be designed. Chapter 6 focuses on protocol aspects, presenting
the technical realization of each of the MMS interfaces. A set of appendices complement the
contents of all chapters and a comprehensive index has been compiled for this book to
represent a practical reference companion for solution architects, telecommunication
engineers, standardization practitioners, instructors, and students.
I must admit that one of the primary reasons for writing books is that it represented for me
a very good opportunity for pretending not to have enough time for washing dishes by hand,
hovering the flat, and tidying up my desk. My wife, Marie-Ame´lie, recently discovered the
trick and it became a real challenge to finish this book according to the agreed timelines,
while being obliged to do the hand-washing of dishes at the same time. We recently
purchased a second-hand dish-washer. This really improves our daily living. I have now
realized that I do not need to write books anymore to pretend not to have enough time for
washing dishes. I may still consider writing articles from time to time, a good reason for
pretending not to have the time to clean the table and put dirty dishes in the beloved dishwasher.
