MMS now quite popular

Picture messaging reaches a respectable one million a day in the UK.

Although it is clear that the predictions that MMS would replace SMS are now best forgotten, operators have been slow to release figures for the number of MMS messages that users were sending. This led inevitably to conclusions that the number of messages was well below exectations.

Now the MDA has ben able to secure the agreement of UK operators to issue a combined total from them of the number of P2P MMS that are being sent.

Earlier this year the MDA revealed that over half of the UK’s phones are picture-capable with the UK’s first five megapixel camera phone now available from LG, and one and two megapixel cameras becoming commonplace in handsets

As the number of people using camera phones grows, more and more users are sending and receiving the photographs they take. It won't be overtaking SMS anytime soon, but we extend a warm welcome to MMS into the family of mobile messaging products.

An alternative to MMS is WAP Push or URL sending. It costs the same as SMS, and can be sent from web-based messaging system, such as txt4ever.

Nearly 4 billion texts per month

November's figure of 3.8 billion text messages takes the annual total so far to a staggering 37 billion, according to figures released today by the Mobile Data Association (MDA).

Person-to-person texts sent across the UK GSM network operators last month show an incredible increase of 1 billion on the total sent during the same period in 2005. November’s total represents an average of 126 million text messages currently sent per day in the UK.

On 6th December 2005, the MDA forecast that text messaging figures would rise to deliver an annual total of 36.5 billion text messages for 2006. This estimate was revised in August 2006 to 40 billion which it is now clear it will slightly exceed.

On New Year’s Day in 2006 165 million SMS were sent,is the highest ever daily total yet recorded, a figure that is sure to be exceeded again this year.

Prevous years have been beset with message delays as the networks struggle to cope with the sudden demand. However, networks have increased their capacity to match the continued growth of SMS and hopefuly significant delays will be something in the past.

Backing Up Phones

How many people back up their mobile phone contacts?
Very few. Yet for most people their mobile is their only source for their contacts. Gone are the days when people have a written phone book.
What are the solutions?
Sim card readers are cheap and easily available but have two main problems:

• They only read the SIM not the phone memory
• They can be lost or broken just as easily as the phone

The other option is backing up to PC. This is probably better, but the phone data connections do not always work - Mac users have problems with Nokias, for example and for many people the technology is too complex.
Data is held on your PC, which means it can't be accessed if you loose your phone when you're away from it.

We have developed a solution which gets around both of these problems. It's a Symbian application that backs up your phone book (memory AND sim) to your web-based messaging account, txt4everywhere. It doesn't require a data connection or Bluetooth and is fast and simple.