OMA Digital Rights Management v1.0
NowSMS provides full support for OMA Digital Rights
Management (DRM) v1.0, with support for forward
lock, combined delivery and separate delivery.
"Forward Lock" is the most basic level of
DRM. When "Forward Lock" is enabled, this indicates
that the receiving device should not allow any non-
text objects in the message to be forwarded off of
the device. The device may allow the user to
extract pictures, videos or sounds from the message
and save them on the phone. However, any such
objects remain forward locked, such that they
cannot be forwarded to another user or transferred
to another device.
More advanced DRM restrictions can be applied to
limit the number of times that the user can access
an object, or start and end dates can be specified to
limit how long the user can access an object. The
restrictions can only be applied when using
either "Combined Delivery" or "Separate Delivery".
When using either "Combined Delivery" or "Separate
Delivery", a rights object is associated with the DRM
protected object. This rights object defines
permissions and constraints for how the DRM
protected object may be used by the receiver.
"Combined Delivery" means that both the
protected object and the rights object are delivered
simultaneously. The protected object and its rights
object are packaged as a multipart/related MIME
object, which is usually retrieved by the receiving
client via HTTP download or as part of the content of
an MMS message.
"Separate Delivery" means that the
protected object and the rights object are delivered
separately. The protected object is retrieved by the
receiving client via HTTP download or as part of the
content of an MMS message. However, the
protected object is locked and cannot be used until a
rights object is separately delivered. In this case,
the rights object is usually sent via WAP Push over
SMS (sometimes premium rate SMS).
The web interface of NowSMS offers built-in support
using "Forward Lock" or "Combined Delivery" when
sending MMS or Multimedia WAP Push content.
When sending an either of these message types, it is
possible to specify Digital Rights Management (DRM)
restrictions over the content of the message.
The DRMCOMP command line utility can be
used to add a wrapper of DRM protection to a
content object. DRM wrappers are added to
individual pieces of content, such as an image or
video, and not to an entire MMS message. The
DRMCOMP command line utility can be used to add
DRM wrappers for forward lock, combined delivery or
separate delivery.
Find out more....
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Dear Bryce,
The first release of the 2006 edition of the Now
SMS/MMS Gateway is now available for download at
the NowSMS
Web Site.
This newsletter will highlight some of the new
functionality available in this release. For more
information on these features, please refer to the
updated software manual for NowSMS 2006, available
for download at http://www.nowsms.com/download/nowsms2006.pdf.
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More Robust SMPP Implementation |
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Asynchronous SMPP - The SMPP client has
been
enhanced to support asynchronous SMPP, allowing
for significantly faster message throughput when
connecting to SMSCs using the SMPP protocol. The
typical SMPP message flow involves the sender
submitting a message to the server, and the receiver
sending back a response to acknowledge receipt of
the message. When async mode is not enabled, the
sender does not send the next message until the
previous acknowledgment has been received.
Depending on the speed (and latency) of the
connection between the sender and the receiver,
and the amount of processing that the receiver
performs before sending back an acknowledgment,
this can have a serious impact on the overall
connection performance. Enabling SMPP Async
Mode tells NowSMS that it does not need to wait for
an acknowledgment for the previous message before
submitting the next message. Instead, NowSMS will
send up to the defined Window Size number of
messages without receiving an acknowledgment. As
long as this is properly supported by the SMS
service provider, this can provide a great increase in
potential throughput, and is generally required for
any single SMPP connection to exceed 3 messages
per second.
SMPP Delivery Receipt Tracking - SMPP
delivery receipt message ids are now tracked, which
is particularly useful for installations who support
multiple customers connecting to their NowSMS
server via SMPP. NowSMS can now ensure that
delivery receipts get routed back to the proper
customer account without requiring the use of static
sender address routing.
SMPP Server Times Out Idle Connections -
The SMPP Server module now enforces
an "enquire_link" policy. If the SMPP server does not
receive an enquire link (or other command) within a
predefined timeout period, the connection will be
automatically terminated. The default setting is 120
seconds. ( A value of 0 can be used to disable this
timeout requirement.)
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Read on... |
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Priority Message Queue Handling |
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By default, NowSMS maintains a single queue for all
outbound messages. This means that if "User A"
submits 5,000 messages, and "User B" submits a
single urgent message, all 5,001 messages are
grouped into a single outbound message queue which
is processed roughly in the order in which the
messages were submitted to the gateway. This may
present an unacceptable performance limitation for
some multi-user configurations.
To overcome this limitation, it is possible to configure
NowSMS to maintain separate outbound message
queues for each user account defined to NowSMS.
(When NowSMS is used as a direct-delivery MMSC,
this separate outbound message queue setting
applies to both "SMS Users" accounts, and "MMSC
VASP" accounts.)
On the "SMS Users" configuration dialog,
check "Separate outbound message queues for each
user" to enable this functionality. When this
functionality is enabled, you must define a "User
Queue Size Threshold" which specifies how many
messages will be processed from any one user's
outbound message queue before NowSMS switches
to another user's queue. It is recommended that this
setting not be set too low, as there is system
overhead involved in switching between user queues
which can slow down overall messaging throughput
on systems with faster SMSC connections. 10 is an
acceptable minimum value for systems that are using
GSM modem connections, while a value of 30 or
higher is recommended for systems with faster
NowSMS licenses, and correspondingly faster SMSC
connections.
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Read on... |
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EMS Support |
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The Send EMS Message web form contains
some options to send some common types of EMS
and Nokia Smart Messaging messages.
The "EMS Text" option allows you to send
text messages that include EMS attributes for text
formatting, such as bold, italics and large or small
text. EMS text messages can also included
predefined animations and sounds which are pre-
loaded on EMS compatible phones. NowSMS also
supports generating the EMS text formatting codes
to specify colors to be used in text messages,
however this functionality does not appear to be
very widely supported in current handsets. EMS
Text messages are an interesting messaging option,
because the EMS standard is designed in such a way
that an EMS text message is gracefully downgraded
when delivered to a recipient handset that does not
support EMS. If the recipient handset does not
understand EMS, it will display only the text of the
message.
The "EMS ring tone" option allows you to
submit ring tone data in either RTTTL, iMelody or
MIDI format, and send the ring tone out in either
EMS, Nokia Smart Messaging, or WAP Push/MIDI
format. These formats are largely supported for the
sake of interfacing with older or less capable
handsets, as newer handsets often support true tone
formats based upon MP3.
The "EMS Picture Message" option allows
you to send simple picture messages using either the
EMS or Nokia Smart Messaging format. These
formats refer to the old monochrome/black & white
images that are sent via SMS, as opposed to the
more advanced functionality offered by MMS. While
there is little use for monochrome images in a
Technicolor world, these message types can be
useful for applications that need to send bar code
types of images via SMS, where they cannot assume
that recipient devices will have MMS or WAP
capabilities.
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Read on... |
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MMS 1.2 & MMSC Enhancements |
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The NowSMS MMSC has been updated to support
MMS 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2.
Additionally, performance enhancements have been
implemented to reduce bottlenecks on systems with
a large number of defined users. In particular, the
statistics information maintained in the MMSCUSERS
directory is now stored in a hashed directory
structure to prevent performance problems that can
occur with Windows and directories with large
numbers of files. It is also possible to disable the
maintenance of this statistical information.
MMS Virus Blocking/Prevention logic has also been
updated. For more information, please see http://www.nowsms.com/support/bulletins/
tb-nowsms-014.htm.
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Read on... |
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OTA Enhancements |
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WAP and OMA Web forms have been updated to
support additional settings types, including Wireless
Village/Instant Messaging, SyncML, and E-Mail. OMA
settings now also support the USERNETWPIN pin type.
NowSMS 2006 now includes a "View XML"
button on all of the WAP and OMA OTA Settings
forms. This button will display the XML document
that NowSMS has generated for the current web
form. This allows for easier customisation of settings
to meet different requirements.
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Read on... |
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System Alerts |
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E-mail alerts can be enabled to notify system
administrators of any SMSC connectivity issues or
message delivery problems. Alerts can also be
triggered if the outbound message queue exceeds a
predefined threshold.
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Read on... |
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E-Mail to SMS and MMS Enhancements |
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NowSMS 2006 implements numerous improvements
intended to simplify the process of deploying
NowSMS as a bidirectional e-mail to SMS or MMS
solution. A new integrated POP3 server
simplifies the process of connecting e-mail clients to
NowSMS for sending and receiving SMS and/or MMS
messages.
NowSMS 2006 supports an "authorised sender
list" to specify what e-mail addresses should be
allowed to send e-mail messages out via SMS and/or
MMS.
NowSMS 2006 can be configured to allow multiple e-
mail addresses to share a GPRS modem as an e-mail
to MMS gateway, allowing MMS replies from mobile
phones to be directed back to the correct e-mail
address.
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Read on... |
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GSM & GPRS Modem Handling |
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NowSMS 2006 simplifies the process of using a GPRS
modem to send and receive MMS messages by
including a built-in list of MMSC settings for mobile
operators.
GSM and GPRS modem handling is improved with
additional modem handling logic designed to wake up
sleeping or otherwise unresponsive modems.
Where supported by the modem and mobile network,
NowSMS translates GSM modem delivery receipts into
a format that is compatible with SMPP environments.
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Read on... |
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