Airwide's MMS Hat-trick

Airwide Solutions has unveiled three new additions to its family of Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) products – AirMessenger MMSC, AirMessenger Router for MMS and AirGate MMS – that it says will help operators meet growing user demand for rich media messaging. Airwide claims its MMS products are the industry’s performance leaders, offering the highest MMS message throughput, the greatest message type flexibility, including application to person (A2P), person to application (P2A) and person to person (P2P), at the lowest cost.
MMS is becoming increasingly important to mobile operators, and MMS traffic and revenues are growing rapidly, says Airwide. According to Portio Research, MMS traffic worldwide doubled from 13.9 billion messages in 2005 to 27.26 billion in 2006. This volume will continue to increase, fuelled by the increasing number of applications that drive MMS traffic of all types, the continued reduction in price per MMS message, and the growing number of MMS-compatible handsets in use. However, says Airwide, operators’ traditional MMSC infrastructures, originally designed for low volumes of P2P traffic, are unable to handle the high MMS traffic volumes generated by applications, resulting in user dissatisfaction, increased churn and lost revenues. Moreover, these legacy infrastructures were not built to easily scale, forcing operators to over-buy expensive capacity to meet growing demand.
The Airwide family of MMS products address this market need for high-performance solutions that support multiple message types. The products also represent a further step in addressing mobile operator requirements for Mobile Messaging 2.0 design goals of independently scalable messaging components that support multiple messaging types and enable rapid deployment of revenue-generating applications.
“With demand for mobile data applications such as MMS exploding, critical investments in infrastructure must be made to ensure a high quality of service and reliability,” says Godfrey Chua, Research Manager for IDC’s Wireless and Mobile Infrastructure Program. “This is essential for service providers looking to accelerate the growth of data revenues, reduce customer churn, and at the same time, maximise operational efficiency."
AirMessenger MMSC reliably delivers and stores MMS messages. AirGate MMS enables operators to connect third-party applications and services to the network quickly and affordably, while protecting operators’ networks and their subscribers. AirMessenger Router for MMS intelligently routes MMS messages to improve the user experience and system efficiency. The flexibility of Airwide’s MMS products’ enables them to be deployed as a high-performance P2P or A2P MMSC, or both, and AirGate MMS can be co-located or deployed separately.
The solutions are designed to comply with the principles of Airwide’s ‘Fusion’ tiered architecture, which breaks monolithic messaging infrastructures into tiers, including  storage, access and delivery, control, and application. Airwide’s product portfolio addresses each of these tiers through scalable components that support multiple messaging types. Instead of purchasing functionality they don’t require, operators can independently scale what they need such as control (AirGate MMS) or storage and access (AirMessenger MMSC).
“With our MMS solutions, operators can unleash the full MMS potential of their networks, maximizing the value of their content and delivering high-quality mobile marketing campaigns,” says Patrick Lopez, Vice President of Product Management for Airwide Solutions. “AirMessenger MMSC, AirMessenger Router for MMS and AirGate MMS let mobile operators embrace next-generation Mobile Messaging 2.0 infrastructures that let them capitalise on new revenue opportunities, scale with market demand and cut costs while managing multiple application vendors.”
The Airwide MMS products are available immediately and are priced according to system requirements.