New ''SMS with Attachments'' Service Used by 18 Million Mobile Subscribers in China

First you get the text message. And then the phone rings, playing back a multimedia joke message sent by one of your friends. It’s funny enough that you want to share it with others. It’s called SMS (text) messaging with attachments, and it is the latest revenue-generating service built using Open Access™ media processing boards from telecommunications services platform provider NMS Communications. The SMS with attachments service, developed by value-added service provider ChannelSoft, is available to nearly 96 million China Unicom and China Mobile subscribers, and has already been adopted by more than 18 million subscribers to date.

SMS with attachments allows users to send external multimedia content to friends and family. Callers can subscribe to the service and select attachments such as music, ringback tones, jokes, other audio files and other forms of entertainment that they want to share with friends. The operator will then send the SMS message with the attachment to the recipient, who could then forward the message to other friends. ChannelSoft expects the service to continue to grow, increasing average revenue per user (ARPU), with estimates topping $44 million for 2008.

“Messaging continues to drive revenues in the mobile industry, and SMS with attachments is a new frontier for subscribers to share content,” said Wang Wenyuan, assistant chief engineer of ChannelSoft. “The NMS Open Access media processing boards provide the flexibility, reliability, scalability and performance in an affordable board to enable us to deliver these types of breakthrough services.”

ChannelSoft chose Open Access products because they are open, high-density, affordable carrier-grade building blocks that give developers the processing power and capacity needed to quickly develop a fast-growing set of current and next-generation services. The boards’ scalability will enable ChannelSoft and its customers to accommodate rapid adoption of SMS with attachments.

“While text messaging still enjoys the lion’s share of mobile messaging revenues, operators are expanding their menus to give subscribers more options that will, in turn, drive revenues,” said Jamie Warter, vice president of marketing at NMS Communications. “SMS with attachments is another great example of a creative service developed by an innovative company like ChannelSoft using NMS Open Access media processing boards.”