AT&T Wireless' customers with compatible phones can combine pictures, text, animations, and sounds - including their own voice recordings - all in a single message that can be shared with others. The new Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is an evolution of the popular picture messaging capability, first introduced to the United States by AT&T Wireless last year.
"Now, it's as easy as point, click, and send for our customers to share photos from phone to phone," said John Bunyan, senior vice president of AT&T Wireless. "Just like text messaging, they can send photos simply by addressing them to their friend's wireless phone number, and now they can add sounds, music, and animations to make their messages come alive. Messaging services are becoming a cornerstone of wireless communications, and today's launch builds on our proven legacy of market leadership in this area."
Pictures "plus"
MMS messages can be sent to and from AT&T Wireless customers with MMS-capable handsets and from compatible phones to any e-mail address. For example, AT&T Wireless customers who use the Sony Ericsson T68i, with its miniature digital camera attachment, can now add sound and text to accompany the picture before sending it to another AT&T Wireless subscriber with a compatible phone. Sending an MMS message costs $.40 each, while incoming MMS messages from other AT&T Wireless customers are free.
Electronic greetings go mobile
Building on the popularity of web-based electronic greeting cards, AT&T Wireless customers will be able to send an MMS greeting card with still or animated cards from American Greetings.com or Sony Pictures. These electronic greetings will come to life with music and animation to deliver a message unlike any paper card can convey. For a cost of $1.99 each, customers will be able to select from more than one hundred greetings to fit any occasion, or create their own card by choosing images, sounds, and text. To compose a greeting card, customers will simply visit www.attwireless.com/mms, or customers who use AT&T Wireless' mMode(sm) service can access these greeting cards under the Message Center menu.
Rich media alerts for the latest news, entertainment
"MMS also enables our customers to receive much richer news alerts with pictures and text - right on their wireless phones," said Bunyan. For example, customized news alerts are now available from Associated Press (AP) News; AccuWeather.com offers complete weather alerts including forecasts, satellite images and weather maps; and Silicon Investor gives up-to-the-minute stock quotes and pricing charts. Customers can register for these alerts directly on their handsets through mMode. Customers will typically be charged between 35 cents and 50 cents per alert message. In the near future, customers will have additional ways to register for these alerts.
