Icelandic Network Orders MMS Management Tool

Mobile Cohesion says that it has been awarded a contract by Siminn (Iceland Telecom), for the commercial deployment of the messaging version of its Hydra Service Provider Access Gateway solution on the Siminn GSM network.

Due for commercial launch in the middle of December, Hydra will manage Siminn MMS applications and content sourced outside the network from third-party content providers and aggregators, as well as end-user-created applications. The contract award follows successful network evaluation trials during the summer in which the two companies successfully tested a full range of interoperability and delivery scenarios, including how standard web-based multimedia content can be delivered via MMS when requested by SMS shortcodes.

Since the MMSC was implemented, Siminn has been carefully monitoring how its initial MMS service has been used by subscribers. The intelligence gathered has been used to ensure maximum impact from new premium services, which are also set to launch by the middle of December, when Hydra will go online commercially for the first time, interoperating seamlessly with Iceland Telecom's MMSC, provided by Ericsson.

Birkir Marteinsson, Siminn's Service Network Manager, said, "With both Mobile Cohesion's Hydra gateway and Ericsson's MMSC interoperating to manage and deliver our MMS offerings to end-users, Siminn now has one of the most advanced MMS delivery capabilities anywhere in the world. With Hydra's incorporation our full service solution will now deliver total application-to-person capabilities.

"We have seen good growth in the usage of MMS for mobile blogging - taking pictures with your phone and sending them straight to the web," Marteinsson continued. "Our aim now is to increase the value and availability of content - deploying Hydra is the next key step in our MMS/content/VAS strategy."

Denis Murphy, CEO of Mobile Cohesion said, "Siminn's innovative approach to delivering wireless services means that the network has provided a formidable testing ground for Hydra. Hydra's ability to manage this application-to-person MMS traffic environment and interoperate with the Ericsson MMSC is testimony to its advanced service delivery and control capabilities."

Posted to the site on 2nd December 2003