Now SMS/MMS Newsletter
  v5.50 Beta Available for Download! March 15, 2004  

What's new with NowSMS?

OMA Digital Rights Management

Vodafone UK to start blocking WAP Push

NowSMS at CTIA in Atlanta

"2-Way" Receive SMS Enhancements

WAP Push

Coming Soon: Best of the NowSMS Discussion Board

More NowSMS v5.50 Enhancements



OMA Digital Rights Management

Digital Rights Management (DRM) addresses the most critical issues facing providers of premium content -- the unauthorised use and distribution of content. Standardised by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), and adopted by all major handset vendors, DRM offers new ways of protecting premium content. Handsets with DRM support still only constitute a small portion of the handsets available on the market, but NowSMS v5.50 can help you get ready for wider DRM enabled content.

Many of the intial handset implementations of OMA DRM support only "Forward-lock". When MMS or WAP Push Content is sent with the "Forward-lock" attribute, the handset user is able to save the image or object to their phone, but they are not able to forward or copy the image or object to another device. Handsets that do not support "Forward-lock" are unable to understand content that is sent with this attribute.

Full OMA DRM v1.0 is only implemented in a few current handsets, such as the Nokia 6220 and 6820. With full OMA DRM v1.0, it is possible to define other attributes to protect premium content. For example, content can be encrypted ("Forward-lock" content is not encrypted, so it is not a perfect solution). Additionallly, time limits, or number of access limits can be applied to premium content. In such a scenario, a Java game might require a monthly subscription for continued use. DRM Rights messages are sent via WAP Push over SMS for such application extensions (an ideal use for premium rate SMS!).

NowSMS v5.50 now supports the ability to encode these DRM Rights messages for delivery via WAP Push over SMS.

More about NowSMS v5.50 and DRM...

   Dear NowSMS Customer,

A beta release for the v5.50 release of the Now SMS/MMS Gateway is currently available for download.

Highlights of features available in this release include support for Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Digital Rights Management (DRM) v1.0, and expanded WAP Push capabilities.

  • Vodafone UK to start blocking WAP Push
  •   Vodafone UK have recently announced that they will introduce a content control mechanism on the Vodafone UK network, to protect minors from accessing inappropriate content. Vodafone plan to control access to content by filtering access to WAP URLs for all network users, except those that have opted out by proving that they are adults.

    NowSMS v5.50 now provides a way for a single Now SMS/MMS Gateway to use multiple host names for URL generation of adult vs. non-adult content.

    Read more about it...

  • NowSMS at CTIA in Atlanta
  •   CTIA Wireless will be held 22nd to 24th March 2004 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

    Now Wireless will be exhibiting at this event (Stand #1501), and technical and sales representatives are available for pre-scheduled meetings. For more information, contact Lisa Smith via e-mail as lisa.smith@now.co.uk.

    Visit NowSMS at CTIA...

  • "2-Way" Receive SMS Enhancements
  •   We've been listening to customer suggestions on how to improve the NowSMS "2-way" facility for processing received SMS messages. It is now possible to define different "2-way" commands for processing received messages based upon the recipient phone number in the received message. Additionally, a "mailto:" command can be defined to route received messages to an e-mail address.

    For NowSMS systems with heavy volumes of receied message traffic, NowSMS v5.50 now supports multithreaded processing of received messages, allowing high volumes of received messages to be processed in a shorter amount of time.

    More about NowSMS v5.50...

  • WAP Push
  •   NowSMS v5.50 now supports the WAP Push Access Protocol (PAP) to provide the ability to generate more specialised types of WAP Push messages. PAP is the standard defined by the Open Mobile Alliance for how applications can interface to a Push Proxy Gateway for sending WAP Push messages.

    With support for PAP, NowSMS can be used as a push proxy for other vendor's MMSCs. It also becomes possible to send other types of push messages, such as those related to SyncML, Wireless Village, and OMA Digital Rights Management.

    More on PAP...

  • Coming Soon: Best of the NowSMS Discussion Board
  •   The NowSMS Discussion Board has become a popular destination for learning more about hidden and "not so obvious" features of the Now SMS/MMS Gateway, as well as SMS and MMS technology in general.

    In the next edition of this newsletter, we'll be highlighting some of the most interesting discussion threads from the NowSMS Discussion board. So forward this newsletter to your friends, and invite them to subscribe.

    Visit the NowSMS Discussion Board now...

  • More NowSMS v5.50 Enhancements
  •   NowSMS v5.50 includes improved support for sending MMS through operator MMSCs over GPRS modems, including better modem handling, and multithreaded delivery allowing multiple GPRS modems to be used for MMS message delivery simultaneously.

    A number of updates have also been applied to the SMPP, MM4 and MM7 implementations, based upon real world feedback and customers interfacing NowSMS with other SMS and MMS based applications.

    More about NowSMS v5.50...


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