Please give me an idiots guide to setting up the MMSC gateway

Please give me an idiots guide to setting up the MMSC gateway SearchSearch
Author Message
Anonymous
 
Posted on Thursday, January 01, 2004 - 11:11 pm:   

what details do I need to put in the "Local Host Name or IP Address", Domain name for MMS Email" and "SMTP relay host" fields? I'm pretty new to this and have initialised my nokia 3650 as a GPRS modem (no problems sending sms using the interface)my service provider is T-mobile uk.
Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Bryce

Post Number: 1507
Registered: 10-2002
Posted on Monday, January 05, 2004 - 04:14 pm:   

Hi,

It's probably best to start with a little bit of background on MMS.

There are two ways to send an MMS message. So, let me explain a bit about how MMS actually works.

When a mobile phone receives an MMS message, what it is actually receiving is an MMS notification message which it receives over SMS. This MMS notification message contains header information about the MMS message, and a URL pointer that the recipient must fetch in order to retrieve the content of the MMS message.

So when you send an MMS, you can do this in one of two ways:

1.) Direct MMS delivery. The MMS message content is stored on the Now SMS/MMS Gateway, and the gateway publishes a dynamic URL for access to the MMS message content. The gateway generates an MMS notification message to the recipient device which is sent over SMS, and this notification includes a URL pointer back to the MMS message content.

2.) Send the message through the operator MMSC. In this case, NowSMS makes a GPRS connection over a GSM/GPRS modem, connects to the operator WAP gateway that is designated for MMS usage by the operator, and the message is submitted to the operator MMSC via the WAP gateway over the GPRS connection. (The operator MMS gateway then generates the dynamic URL and MMS notification message that is ultimately received by the recipient device.)

NowSMS can send MMS messages via either of these approaches.

The default mode for NowSMS is to use Direct Delivery ... in which case NowSMS is the MMSC. (To configure the other mode, see http://www.nowsms.com/documentation/ProductDocumentation/mms_notifications_and_c ontent/Connecting_to_operator_MMSC.htm).

Sorry if this seems like a lot of excess information, but I think this will help explain the "Local Host Name or IP Address" setting.

When you send an MMS, the MMS message content gets stored on the NowSMS server. NowSMS then sends an MMS notification to the recipient device with a URL pointer back to the MMS message content residing on the NowSMS server. The recipient device needs to initiate a data (usually GPRS) connection to retrieve the MMS message content.

The "Local Host Name or IP Address" specifies the host name portion of this URL. This must be a valid host name or IP address that an external device can access to connect back to the PC running NowSMS.

(If you do not have a dedicated IP address, see www.no-ip.com for a service that can associate a host name with a dynamic IP address. If your connection is not full time, or there is no support for direct external connections into your PC, see the link above for information about configuring NowSMS to send MMS messages through the operator MMSC.)

The other settings are specific to e-mail.

If NowSMS is going to be setup to receive e-mail messages and route them to MMS, then you need to configure a domain name for which NowSMS will receive SMTP messages. (Setting this up on the internet requires configuring an MX record for this domain name in internet DNS.) If you are not going to be using this facility, just enter a dummy name.

In order to route MMS messages to e-mail, NowSMS needs another SMTP server to act as an "SMTP relay host". If you don't have one, just enter a dummy value, or leave it blank.
Anonymous
 
Posted on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 06:19 pm:   

Thanks for answering that Bryce. However a few more query. If I use my operators MMSC to send an mms message will they bill me for it as an mms message ie 35p? or is it just taken from my GPRS allowance? and if the latter may there be repercussions from my mobile operator sending mms in such a way (using their MMSC)? What is the largest size in kb that is acceptable to send an mms to a mobile phone?
Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Bryce

Post Number: 1522
Registered: 10-2002
Posted on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 07:48 pm:   

If you use the operator MMSC, then you are charged by the operator as if was sent from the mobile phone. So that is definitely a consideration (I'm familiar with the other UK operators, just not sure whether T-Mobile UK is open to messages from external MMSCs ... Vodafone and O2 are open, Orange is closed).

Low end MMS compatible mobile phones cannot handle messages larger than 30KB. That's a lowest common denominator to consider.