Sony Ericsson T290i,T290c White Paper

October 2004

T290i/T290c

Calling made easy

White Paper T290i/T290c

2 October 2004

This document is published by Sony Ericsson
Mobile Communications AB, without any
warranty*. Improvements and changes to this text
necessitated by typographical errors, inaccuracies
of current information or improvements to
programs and/or equipment, may be made by
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB at any
time and without notice. Such changes will,
however, be incorporated into new editions of this
document. Printed versions are to be regarded as
temporary reference copies only.

*All implied warranties, including without limitation
the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness
for a particular purpose, are excluded. In no event
shall Sony Ericsson or its licensors be liable for
incidental or consequential damages of any
nature, including but not limited to lost profits or
commercial loss, arising out of the use of the
information in this document.

This White Paper is published by:

Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB,
SE-221 88 Lund, Sweden

Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
www.SonyEricsson.com/

© Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB,

2004. All rights reserved. You are hereby granted
a license to download and/or print a copy of this
document.
Any rights not expressly granted herein are
reserved.

First edition (October 2004)
Publication number: EN/LZT 108 7578 R1A

Preface

Purpose of this document

This White Paper will be published in several revisions as the phone is developed. Therefore, some of the
headings and tables below contain limited information. Additional information and facts will be forthcom

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ing in later revisions.

The aim of this White Paper is to give the reader an understanding of technology and its main applications,
as well as the main functions and features of the T290i/T290c.

Note: This document contains general descriptions for this specific Sony Ericsson mobile T290i/T290c.

People who can benefit from this document include:

• Operators

• Service providers

• Software developers

• Support engineers

• Application developers

More information, useful for product, service and application developers, is published on

www.SonyEricsson.com/developer/, which contains up-to-date information about technologies, products

and tools.

White Paper T290i/T290c

3 October 2004

Online Developer Resources

On www.SonyEricsson.com/developer, developers will find all documentation and tools such as phone
White Papers, Developers Guidelines, SDK's and API's etc. The developer web site also contains discus

­sion forums monitored by our Sony Ericsson Developer Support team, a searcheable Knowledge Base of
support queries and solutions, Tips & Tricks, example code etc. To stay up to date on development issues,
register and subscribe to the monthly Sony Ericsson Developer Newsletter.

Sony Ericsson Developer Support

Sony Ericsson offers developers professional technical support services. The service can be purchased
from the developer web portal, as part of the Sony Ericsson Core and Core+ membership package or as
individual support incidents. There are two levels of support, described below.

The Basic Email Developer Support is an annual support service included in the Core membership that
provides developers with all the basics to successfully develop world-class applications for Sony Ericsson
products. With this support contract, developers get access to Sony Ericsson developer support engi

­neers via email with same-day response, five technical support incidents as well as the ability to purchase
more.

The Priority Email Developer Support is an annual support service included in the Core+ membership that
equips professional developers with everything they need to successfully develop world-class applica

­tions for Sony Ericsson products. With this support contract, developers get priority access to Sony Erics­son developer support engineers via email with fast response times and up to 50 technical support
incidents.

Document conventions

The Picture Messaging feature is referred to as MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) troughout this doc­ument.

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4 October 2004

Document history

Change history

2004-10-22 Version R1A1 First edition

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5 October 2004

Contents

Product overview ........................................................................................................6

Key functions and features .......................................................................................7

More in-phone functions ...........................................................................................9

Technologies in detail ...............................................................................................11

Multimedia in the T290i/T290c ................................................................................12

MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) ....................................................................12

MMS objects .......................................................................................................13

Benefits ................................................................................................................14

MMS technical features .......................................................................................15

EMS (Enhanced Messaging Service) ......................................................................16

EMS – more than just words ...............................................................................16

New possibilities with messaging ........................................................................17

WAP services ..........................................................................................................19

Using WAP in the T290i/T290c ............................................................................19

Bearer type characteristics ..................................................................................21

Gateway characteristics ......................................................................................21

Security using WAP .............................................................................................21

Configuration of WAP settings ............................................................................22

Push services .......................................................................................................23

Mobile Internet ........................................................................................................23

Data connections .................................................................................................23

General Packet Radio Services ...............................................................................24

Using GPRS in the T290i/T290c ..........................................................................25

In-phone functions and features .............................................................................26

Network-dependent features ...............................................................................31

SIM application toolkit .............................................................................................33

User interaction with SIM AT ............................................................................... 36

Facts and figures ......................................................................................................39

Terminology and abbreviations ...............................................................................40

Related information .................................................................................................44

Documents ..........................................................................................................44

Links ....................................................................................................................44

Trademarks and acknowledgements ..................................................................44

Technical specifications ..........................................................................................44

White Paper T290i/T290c

6 October 2004

Product overview

The T290i/T290c mobile phone are designed to include an impressive set of features for a very reasonable
price. The focus is on messaging, music, gaming, imaging, and connectivity. EMS picture messaging (text
messaging with pictures and sounds), email, MMS (Multimedia messaging), and a snap-on camera acces

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sory are all supported.

This dual band GSM phone [phone] MHz) offers a fast and satisfying mobile Internet experience. The
T290c is intended for the China market. The T290i is intended for the rest of the world with the exception
of Americas. Both phones are scheduled to be available during the first quarter of 2005.

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7 October 2004

Key functions and features

Multimedia Messaging - Digital
greetings

Reacting to the enormous popularity of mobile
phone messaging, Sony Ericsson has incorporated
the latest messaging standards into the T290i/
T290c phone, along with a colour display for an
enhanced imaging experience.

Say it in words, say it with pictures, animate it, add
sound. Multimedia birthday and holiday greetings
are great fun to put together using your phone. On
vacation, use your mobile phone and accessories
to send a digital postcard with stylized text, digital
pictures of where you are, and authentic sound
clips to friends and family back home.

With MMS, the subscription applications get more
interesting, for example stock information, movie
trailers and weather reports.

Speakerphone

Speakerphone is a feature that allows the user to
utilize the phone in “Public Mode” where the phone
routes audio to the loudspeaker. With speaker

­phone, the user can place the phone at a greater
distance away than normally is possible and still
communicate effectively. Multiple individuals in
close proximity can also participate in a phone call.
The speakerphone functionality works with all
accessories except those that inherently modify
audio behaviour such asa PHF, a car kit, or a desk
speakerphone.

Chinese phonebook sorting

You can look up and call a contact in your phone­book by entering the first letter of the name you
want to call. Chinese phonebook sorting makes it
possible to look up and call contacts not only by
entering Latin letters but also by using Chinese
characters.

Polyphonic ring signals

Pleasing to the ear, polyphonic ring signals play
several tones simultaneously making a more musi

­cal sound. The word “polyphony” means playing
with several tones at the same time. Almost all

music that we listen to consists of polyphonic mel

­odies. Polyphonic sounds and ring signals are
widely used in GSM mobile phones.

The T290i/T290c will contain several polyphonic
ring signals. Users can share ring signals, and
download them from the Web.

Early Ericsson mobile phones supported a proprie­tary non-polyphonic format called eMelody. Due to
the musical limitations of eMelody, and as it
became popular to create, send and download ring
melodies, Ericsson and Sony Ericsson, together
with other manufacturers created the more
advanced non-polyphonic sound format - iMelody.

The development from the iMelody format to the
MIDI format means a revolution to the sound qual

­ity. The MIDI files are small, and perfect for mobile
devices which have limited storage capacity.

MIDI - Musical Instrument Digital Interface - is a
specification for a communications protocol princi

­pally used to control electronic musical instru­ments. MIDI is today a well known standard used
by musicians, composers, arrangers and so forth.

A MIDI signal or file does not contain any music,
but instead it contains binary data (information) of
how a melody is played. When these data reach a
synthesizer, the synthesizer will translate the binary
data to music, when connected to an amplifier with
speakers so that the sound becomes audible.

Please visit www.midi.org for more information.

Downloadable games

Gaming is already a very popular feature in Sony
Ericsson phones. In addition to pre-installed
games, now the mobile Internet portal offers the
possibility of downloading games. Network opera

­tors may also offer downloadable games to their
customers as an added value offer. Users can add
new games and skill levels to further enhance the
entertainment value of Sony Ericsson phones.

Downloading of games on T290i/T290c is made
possible by a true virtual machine. The Sony Erics

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son portal for downloading of free games is acces-

White Paper T290i/T290c

8 October 2004

sible via the WAP browser. The openness of the
downloadable games solution is dedicated to pro

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vide an enhanced gaming experience.

The downloadable games can fully take advantage
of the phone’s interfaces, such as TCP/IP, SMS,
vibrator and backlights. The virtual machine exe

­cutes the downloading of games for the optimal
game experience. The user can download an
unlimited number of games as long as the file sys

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tem allows it, i.e. until the phone memory is full.

The downloading concept includes certification of
the games, which makes it possible to create a rev

­enue chain and favorable business opportunities
for network operators and content providers. The
virtual machine uses true sandbox technology for
highest level of security. The software development
kits are available via www.mophun.com

Imaging

With a digital camera attached to your phone, you
can take, view, store and send high-quality pictures
over the air to another mobile phone, as MMS mes

­sages, or you can send them to an email address
or Web photo album. Downloading images from
the Web is another alternative. Thousands of online
image collections already exist on the Web and
many sites are already gearing up to include
images for use in mobile phones.

There are various ways to incorporate images and
other multimedia into your communication. You can
attach pictures to people listed in your phonebook
and have pictures or icons of the caller identifying
them in your display.

The pictures are stored in the picture browser in the
phone. From here, the user can select view, thumb

­nail or full view, as well as keep track of the number
and size of the pictures stored in the phone.

WAP

Your T290i/T290c supports the WAP 1.2.1 browser
and protocol stack, as well as the WAP 2.0
browser. With WAP 1.2.1, your phone can read
WML pages and use WTLS class 3 security. The
added benefit of supporting the WAP 2.0 browser
is the capability to navigate to pages written in
XHTML Mobile Profile and XHTML Basic markup
languages. These two languages, subsets of the
Web standard XHTML, are supported by all major
Web browsers. An XHTML page can be viewed in

both the WAP browser and in any standard Web
browser. All of the basic XHTML features are sup

­ported, including text, images, links, checkboxes,
radio buttons, text areas, headings, horizontal rules
and lists. In addition to WML, XHTML Mobile Pro

­file, and XHTML Basic, your phone supports the
markup language iHTML.

With the WAP 2.0 browser, cascading style sheets
(CSS) and cookies are supported. CSS enhances
content presentation and style. Cookies are often
used by Web sites to store site-specific information
in the browser between visits to the site. Cookies
are often used by e-commerce sites (shopping
carts and wish lists), and to save the user from
entering the same information more than once.

Full graphic 4K display

The T290i/T290c delivers 4K colours on a large dis­play that enhances viewing, facilitating high-quality
multimedia messaging, and personalized imaging.
The standby display looks like the desktop in a
computer, with the menus presented as icons.

Navigation

There is an easy-to-use 4-directional navigation
key. Using finger or thumb, you can easily navigate
the menu system. When you arrive at the required
function in a menu, instead of pressing Yes, just
gently press the small button in the center of the
navigation key and the feature is activated.

GPRS

GPRS uses Internet-style packet based technol­ogy. It allows users to be permanently connected
to the mobile Internet, but only uses the radio link
for the duration of time that it transfers data. GPRS
offers the user the speed needed for satisfactory
mobile Internet usability. Support is provided for
GPRS 3+1.

Figure 1. The T290 standby display.

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9 October 2004

Localization/Customization

Different markets will be served with appropriate
pre-stored content. In addition, individual operators
can be provided with uniquely customized phones.
A complete list of customization options is availa

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ble in the customization specification.

More in-phone functions

Email

The T290i/T290c is another Sony Ericsson mobile
phone with a built-in fully functional email client.
With inbox, outbox, save draft and reply options,
you have all the functions you need for effective
email communication in a small and powerful
mobile phone. Constantly connected to a POP3,
SMTP or IMAP4 email server anywhere on the
Internet, your T290i/T290c stores messages (with

­out attachments) dynamically, depending on availa­ble memory, and updates your inbox automatically
and over the air. Check your email anywhere. Reply
to email on the move. Friends, family and business
contacts know that when they send you email, you
receive it and can read it and act on it immediately.
You can include pictures in outgoing emails, but
cannot receive attachments. Hyperlinks in emails
are supported.

EMS (Enhanced Messaging
Service)

You can send text, pictures and sounds in easy-to­create and fun messages. EMS has been adopted
by several leading mobile phone manufacturers,
making it possible for users to send enhanced text
messages to users of other makes of mobile
phones. EMS makes it possible for the user to use
text formatting (style, size, alignment and para

­graphs) in a text message. At purchase, the phone
is loaded with several pre-defined images and ani

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mations.

Predictive Text Input Software

Text messaging with your T290i/T290c is made
easier than ever with the introduction of predictive
text input software. Instead of having to press keys
several times for a letter, software in your T290i/
T290c chooses from a dictionary of words and

phrases and anticipates what word or phrase you
are writing, giving your mobile phone keyboard
ease of use comparable to that of a full-size key

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board.

Sleep Mode

After a short period of inactivity, the display
changes to sleep mode to save power.

Memory management

All applications in the phone share the same mem­ory, allowing for efficient memory usage. When the
memory runs low, the user gets information about
the current memory situation, where each applica

­tion’s usage is displayed. The user can delete items
from any application, in order to set memory free.
At purchase, there is approximately 400 KB of
memory space available to the user in the file sys

­tem for objects such as pictures, games, sounds,
and themes. In addition to the user space, the file
system contains preloaded pictures, games,
sounds, MMS messages, message templates,
themes, and WAP security information. Details
depend on market and customer requirements.

Mobile chat

Mobile chat makes text messaging easier, since a
chat-session opens up immediately when a text
message is received from a phone. Because the
user stays connected during the session, the mes

­sages open up automatically. Previous messages
from both persons are visible on screen, each
writer being distinguished by a nickname.

White Paper T290i/T290c

10 October 2004

Picture phonebook

The phonebook lets the user assign a picture and/
or a personal ring signal to a certain phone number.
When the user gets a call from this person, the pic

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ture (instead of the number) is shown in the display.

Events

The Events feature keeps track of important meet­ings that you need to attend, phone calls that you
need to make or tasks that you need to do. Twenty
items can be saved. You can also choose to add,
reschedule, edit, send or delete events.

iMelody and Melody Composer

The audio iMelody format enhances the sound
quality in the T290i/T290c. With this format, the
user can play, compose, edit and send melodies
within the improved Melody Composer. The com

­poser has an improved graphical user interface to
simplify melody handling. All new and edited melo

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dies are stored in the iMelody format.

Explanatory Help

The T290i/T290c can be pre-loaded with an MMS
message that contains a demonstration of some of
the phone’s features. In addition, an icon glossary
is included.

Sound browser

From the Sound browser function, the user can
handle all sounds (for example MIDI, eMelodies,
iMelodies and sound recordings) stored in the
phone. The user can play, send and view informa

­tion on the sounds. Ring signals (MIDI, eMelody,
iMelody, vMel) can be downloaded via WAP or
exchanged via SMS (iMelodies) and MMS (MIDI,
iMelodies). Sound recordings can be exchanged
via MMS. The maximum number of sounds is lim

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ited only by the amount of free memory.

Please also see information about the MIDI format
under

“Speakerphone” on page 7.

Camera application

The camera application supports a number of Sony
Ericsson cameras. The user can browse, view,
send and store pictures in the phone. It is also pos

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sible to set different picture sizes.

Themes

With themes, the user can change the appearance
of the display, for example, the text, the back

­ground colours and the background picture. The
phone comes with a number of pre-defined
themes. It is possible to download and exchange
additional themes. The maximum number of
themes is limited only by the amount of

free memory.

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11 October 2004

Technologies in detail

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12 October 2004

Multimedia in the T290i/T290c

The T290i/T290c is a multimedia phone. The colour
display together with the audio functionality gives
the user several multimedia possibilities. For exam

­ple, sounds can be recorded and stored. By using
themes, it is easy to change the appearance of the
display. Pictures, audio, animations and themes
can be transmitted via MMS.

Graphics

Graphics (tables, charts, diagrams and layouts)
have a major impact on the way we work. The
T290i/T290c supports JPG (max 640x480), GIF
(max 160x120), WBMP (max 320x320) and ani

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mated GIFs.

You can set a picture to appear as the background
when you are in standby mode.

Audio

The user of the T290i/T290c can use the mobile
phone as a sound recorder. With the sound
recorder function, it is easy to make a voice record

­ing, for example a personal rendition of “Happy
Birthday”. The audio function in the T290i/T290c
also allows downloading of sounds and melodies.

Pictures

With a digital camera attached to your T290i/
T290c, you can take, view and store pictures. It is
also possible to download colour pictures to your
T290i/T290c. The pictures are stored in the picture
browser in the phone. From here, the user can
select view, thumbnail or full view, as well as keep
track of the number and size of the pictures stored
in the phone.

The pictures stored in your T290i/T290c can be
used for creating your own digital postcards. This
is easily done by adding text to the pictures and
sending them via MMS.

Themes

With themes, the user can change the appearance
of the display, for example the text, the background
colours and the background picture. The phone
comes with a number of pre-defined themes, and it
is possible to download additional themes. The
maximum number of themes is limited only by the
amount of memory.

Image formats

For information on Image formats and downloading
of images, see

“Image format technical data” on
page 61 and “Images – downloading to phone” on
page 62.

MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service)

One of the key features in the T290i/T290c is the
Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). MMS is
expected to become the preferred messaging
method of mobile terminal users, since there are
virtually no limits to the content of an MMS trans

­mission. An MMS message from the T290i/T290c
can contain text, graphics, animations, images,
audio clips and ring melodies. For more detailed
information, see

“Multimedia Messaging Service”

on page 51. For third-party developers’ informa-

tion, please visit www.Ericsson.com/mobility­world/ and look for the MMS Developers’
guidelines.

Defined and specified by 3GPP as a standard for
third generation implementation, MMS completes
the potential of messaging. Sending digital post

­cards and PowerPoint-style presentations is
expected to be among the most popular user appli

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cations of MMS. Eagerly awaited by young users in

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13 October 2004

particular, MMS is projected to fuel the growth of
related market segments by as much as forty per

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cent.

Using the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) as
bearer technology and powered by the high-speed
transmission technologies such as GPRS, Multime

­dia Messaging allows users to send and receive
messages that look like PowerPoint-style presenta

­tions. The messages may include any combination
of text, graphics, photographic images, speech
and music clips. MMS eventually will serve as the
default mode of messaging on all terminals, making
total content exchange second nature. From utility

to sheer fun, it offers benefits at every level and to
every kind of user.

MMS objects

Although MMS is a direct descendant of SMS, the
difference in content is dramatic. The size of an
average SMS message is about 140 bytes, while
the maximum size of an MMS message is limited
only by the memory. That is why the key word to
describe MMS content is rich. Complete with
words, sounds and images, MMS content is
endowed with the user’s ideas, feelings and per

­sonality. And whether the messages are full or only
notifications is insignificant.
An MMS message can contain one or more of the
following:

Te xt

As with SMS and EMS, an MMS message can con­sist of normal text. The length of the text is unlim­ited, and it is possible to format the text. The main
difference between an EMS and MMS message is
that in an MMS message, text can be accompanied
not only by simple pixel images or melodies but by
photographic images, graphics, audio clips and in
the future, video sequences.

Templates

The T290i/T290c comes with a number of MMS
pre-defined templates, for example templates for
birthday cards, meeting requests, etc.

Audio

MMS provides the ability to send and receive full
sound (iMelody, MIDI and AMR) messages. Not
only can users share a favorite song or ring signal
with a friend, they can also use the mobile phone to
record sound and send it along with a message.
Because sound includes speech as well as music,
this extra dimension of an MMS message makes
for enhanced immediacy of expression and com

­munication. Rather than sending a downloaded
birthday jingle in EMS, for example, a user can
send a clip of his or her own personal rendition of
“Happy Birthday”.

The T290i/T290c will contain several polyphonic
ring signals. Users can share ring signals, and
download them from the Web.

Pictures and themes

By using a snap-on camera accessory, users can
take a snapshot and immediately send it to a recip

­ient. The ability to send pictures is one of the most
exciting attributes of MMS, as it allows users to
share meaningful moments with friends, family and
colleagues.

Figure 2. An MMS message can contain images,
music, audio and graphics.

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14 October 2004

Mobile picture transmission also offers inestimable
utility in business applications, from sending on­site pictures of a construction project to capturing
and storing an interesting design concept for later
review. Editing a picture by adding text allows
users to create their own electronic postcards, an
application that is expected to substantially cut into
the traditional postcard-sending market. Themes
(downloaded or pre-defined) can be exchanged via
MMS.

SMIL presentations

SMIL stands for Synchronized Multimedia Integra­tion Language and is pronounced “smile”. SMIL in
the T290i/T290c allows the user to create and
transmit PowerPoint-style presentations on the
mobile device. SMIL is an advanced XML-based
protocol, and Sony Ericsson MMS supports a sub

­set of this protocol. Using a simple media editor,
users can incorporate audio and animated GIFs
along with still images, animations and text to
assemble full multimedia presentations.

The idea of SMIL is to allow the user to customize
the page timing in PowerPoint-style presentations.
The user can decide in which order the image and
text will be displayed, as well as for how long the
images and text lines are to be shown in the dis

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play

PIM communication with MMS

With MMS in the T290i/T290c, it is easy to send
and receive business cards and events.

Business card (vCard)

With MMS in the T290i/T290c, the user can send
his/her business card.

.

Benefits

Essentially enabling the mobile terminal to serve as
image processor and conveyor, Multimedia Mes

­saging accommodates the exchange of important
visual information as readily as it facilitates fun.
Business and leisure usage of MMS will be dynam

­ically merged, resulting in enhanced personal effi­ciency for users and increased network activity for
operators. In short, MMS affords total usage for
total communication

Because MMS uses WAP as its bearer technology
and is being standardized by 3GPP, it has wide
industry support and offers full interoperability,
which is a major benefit to service providers and
end users. Ease-of-use resulting from both the
gradual steps of the messaging evolution and the
continuity of user experience gained from interop

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erability is assured.

The MMS server, through which MMS messages
are sent, supports flexible addressing (to both nor

­mal phone numbers (MSISDN) and email
accounts), which makes the user interface more
friendly and allows greater control for operators.
The MMS server, moreover, is responsible for the
instant delivery of MMS.

Figure 3. Example of the creation of an MMS
message.

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15 October 2004

MMS technical features

The MMS standard, just like SMS, offers store-and­forward transmission (instant delivery) of mes

­sages, rather than a mailbox-type model. MMS is a
person-to-person communications solution, mean

­ing that the user gets the message directly into the
mobile. Unlike SMS, the MMS standard uses WAP
as its bearer protocol. MMS will take advantage of
the high speed data transport technologies such as
GPRS and support a variety of image, video and
audio formats to facilitate a complete communica

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tion experience.

Architecture

The MMS Center (MMS-C) is comprised of the
MMS Server, the MMS Proxy-Relay and the MMS
Store. The MMS Center is the central element of

the MMS network architecture, providing storage
and operational support, enabling instant delivery
of multimedia messages from terminal-to-terminal
and terminal-to-email, and supporting flexible
addressing. The center’s MMS Proxy-Relay inter

­acts with the application being run on the MMS­enabled terminal to provide various messaging
services. WAP is used as bearer of an MMS mes

­sage between the MMS-C and the MMS client
(application). The WAP Gateway is used for delivery
and retrieval of messages.

Message conversion

The MMS-C is able to perform limited message
conversion - for example, from MMS to SMS - so
that processing and air time is not wasted in send

­ing messages to mobile terminals that do not have
adequate capability to receive them. It also handles
service aspects such as store and forward, guaran

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teed delivery, subscriber preferences, operator

constraints, and billing information. The MMS-C
also vouches for high quality messaging, e.g. by
format conversion. This means that the MMS-C
recognizes which formats are supported in the
mobile phone, and adapts the MMS messages to
these formats.

Figure 4. The architecture of MMS

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16 October 2004

OTA configuration

Users can easily get MMS into their phone. MMS
supports OTA, meaning that the user does not have
to configure the settings manually.
The configuration is done by the operator.

EMS (Enhanced Messaging Service)

Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS) adds new
powerful functionality to the well-known SMS
standard. With it, mobile phone users can add life
to SMS text messaging in the form of pictures, ani

­mations, sound and formatted text. This gives the
users new ways to express feelings, moods and
personality in SMS messages. In addition to mes

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saging, users will enjoy downloading, collecting,
swapping, and editing pictures, ring signals, and
other melodies.

EMS uses existing SMS infrastructure and industry
standards, keeping investments to a minimum for
operators. EMS provides a familiar user interface
and compatibility with existing phones and other
manufacturers.

EMS – more than just words

Sounds and melodies

EMS gives the user the ability to send and receive
sounds. These can be pre-defined sounds or melo

­dies (ring signals in the phone), downloaded from
the Internet, received in SMS messages or com

­posed by the user on the phone keypad or a PC.
Note that MIDI ring signals cannot be exchanged
via EMS.

Several sounds and melodies can be inserted in
one message, and they can be combined with pic

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tures.

Pictures, animations and
formatted text

Phones supporting EMS include a set of pre­defined pictures for inserting in SMS messages.
New pictures and animations are downloaded from
the Internet or received in SMS messages. Several
pictures can be inserted in one message, and they
can be combined with sounds and melodies. The
users can format text in messages with different
styles and sizes.

Concatenated messages

A part of the EMS standard is the support for con­catenated messages, which means that the phone
is able to automatically combine several messages
both when creating and receiving EMS. This is use

­ful to be able to build, and display, messages with
rich content, since the amount of information in
each SMS is limited by the SMS standards.

White Paper T290i/T290c

17 October 2004

New possibilities with messaging

The EMS standard is now a part of the SMS stand­ard and supported by the major network operators
and mobile phone manufacturers. This universal
approach enables a fast penetration and develop

­ment of new services and applications within mes­saging.

Creativity explosion

Users will be inspired to create and swap their own
melodies and pictures. But more importantly, pro

­fessional content creators and providers are
already preparing to offer imaginative and creative
contents for use with EMS. Based on subscrip

­tions, fees or ads, network operators will be able to
provide wide ranges of ring signals, operator logos
and corporate icons, as well as personal and
mood-related pictures and melodies. Movie, music
and game companies can promote new products
and events with designer melodies, animations and
pictures.

Huge business potential

Network operators can now enhance their services
and attract more customers by offering pictures,
animations, ring signals and melodies for download
at their portals. Operators can charge more per
EMS message since it contains more data. Thereby
EMS adds more value to the operators and to the
end users.

Increase SMS revenue

EMS uses the same basic network support as ordi­nary SMS, and with the same familiar user inter­face. From an operator's point of view, SMS is low
tech because minimal investment is needed to pro

­vide an effective SMS service to subscribers and
little maintenance is required. EMS will create addi

­tional revenue for service providers and network
operators by increasing SMS traffic.

Compatible with SMS standards

Users will find EMS as easy to use as SMS. Over
15 billion SMS messages, are sent every month
worldwide. Roughly 80% of this traffic is user-to­user, i.e. mobile phone users sending short mes

­sages to each other using the keypad of the phone
to enter text. The remaining 20% is shared by
downloads and notifications of different kinds.

The Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS) was first
submitted to the standards committees by Erics

­son. Ericsson presented the outline structure of
EMS to the relevant ETSI/ 3GPP committees. The
major mobile phone manufacturers and most oper

­ators are actively contributing to the 3GPP stand­ards. Hence the EMS standards have evolved and
are now stable and complete as part of the 3rd
Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) technical
specification.

An EMS message can be sent to a mobile phone
that does not support EMS, or only supports part
of EMS. All the EMS elements i.e. text formatting,
pictures, animations and sounds are located in the
message header. The EMS contents will be ignored
by a receiving phone that does not support the
standard. Only the text message will be displayed
to the receiver. This is true consumer-friendly
standardization. EMS is compatible to SMS across
most of the range of mobile phones from the oldest
to the newest.

Some companies in the mobile phone industry
have developed their own messaging technologies,
which only work with their own phone models. Net

­work operators are in favor of EMS because it is
universal – many of the major mobile phone manu

­facturers are constructively improving and develop­ing the EMS standards even further for
implementation in their products.

Examples of EMS contents and
applications

A wide range of contents, applications and serv­ices may be developed. Below is a list of examples
and areas where messaging can be enhanced with
EMS.

User-to-user message

Messages usually originating from the keypad of a
mobile phone can include pictures, melodies, and
formatted text with EMS.

Voice and email notifications

Notifying mobile phone users that they have new
voice or fax mail messages waiting - including
icons or melodies with EMS.

White Paper T290i/T290c

18 October 2004

Notification

The user typically receives a short message notify­ing them that they have a new message in their
messaging box, with icons or formatted text further
enhancing the message.

Internet email alerts

An Internet email alert is provided in the form of a
short message that typically details the sender of
the email, the subject field, and the first few words
of the email message. In this case, formatted text is
excellent to identify message elements.

Ring signals

Downloading ring signals from the Internet.

News & commercials

Examples include: Illustrated world news, sports
scores and news headlines, finance and stock mar

­ket news with diagrams and tickers, commercial
product promotions, weather reports with maps,
tunes from TV commercials as ring signals.

Info & entertainment

Examples include: Ring signals, e-greetings, foot­ball team logo, joke-of-the-day illustrated by pic­tures or sound, horoscopes, movie related

animation or theme song, TV show promotions,
music artist promotions, lottery results, food and
drink pictures and recipes, mood-related pictures.

Corporate

Examples include: Flight schedules, preinstalled
corporate logos, map snippets and travel info,
company branded icons and ring signals, corpo

­rate email notifications, affinity programs where
companies notify customers of product updates
etc., banks notifying customers about new services
and interest rates, call centers providing answers to
questions about a product, vehicle positioning
combining EMS with Global Positioning System
(GPS) position information, job dispatch with deliv

­ery addresses for sales or courier package delivery,
using EMS in a retail environment for credit card
authorization, remote monitoring of machines for
service and maintenance purposes.

Using Web, WAP and SMS for download

Already today services exist on the Internet where
users can create melodies, view icons, pictures,
and subscribe to entertainment and informations
services. These may develop further in the future to
support Internet access by a PC connected to a
mobile phone using WAP, or even an SMS request
interface.

Figure 5. The possibilities of using EMS

White Paper T290i/T290c

19 October 2004

The diagram shows the possibilities for using
Enhanced Messaging Service:

• When the Operator/Service provider enables
EMS in the network, users will enjoy adding life
to messages with sounds, melodies, pictures
and formatted text.

• New ranges of Content/Application aggregators
on the operator network or the Internet can pro

­vide EMS contents and services to the users
over SMS.

• Content Creators/providers can see a new
demand for creative contents. Also, promotional
activities from movie companies, record labels
etc can provide ring signals, movie snapshots,
etc.

The added value in SMS messaging will create new
revenue which can be shared between the network
operators, the application aggregators, and the
content providers.

WAP services

The T290i/T290c supports WAP 1.2.1 browser and
protocol stack, as well as WAP 2.0 browser (WML

1.3). WAP 2.0 optimizes usage of higher band

­widths and packet-based connections of wireless
networks.

The typical WAP client is a small, portable device
connected to a wireless network. This includes
mobile phones, pagers, smart phones, PDAs and
other small devices. Of course, compared to desk

­top and laptop computers, these devices are lim­ited by user interface, low memory and low
computing power.

The WAP browser in the T290i/T290c is compliant
with WAP 2.0 and WAP 1.2.1. It includes WTLS
class 3 as well as mechanisms for digital signa

­tures. The T290i/T290c supports WML, XHTML,
and iHTML. The WAP browser in the T290i/T290c
is also designed to access information such as
timetables, share prices, exchange rates, Internet
banking and other interactive services. For more
details, see

“WAP browser technical data” on

page 54.

Using WAP in the T290i/T290c

The built-in WAP browser in the T290i/T290c gives
the user portable, fast and secure access to a wide
variety of services, including personalized services,
with new opportunities for business, individuals
and service providers:

Push services

Businesses and service providers can “push” con­tent or service indications to work groups and/or
customers. Examples of pushed content would be
mail alerts, messaging, news, stock quotes, con

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tacts, meeting requests, etc.

Support of XHTML

The WAP browser supports the markup languages
of WAP 2.0 – XHTML Mobile Profile and XHTML
Basic. These two subsets of the Web standard
XHTML are supported by all major Web browsers.
An XHTML page can be viewed in both the WAP
browser and in any standard Web browser. All of
the basic XHTML features are supported, including
text, images, links, checkboxes, radio buttons, text
areas, headings, horizontal rules and lists.

White Paper T290i/T290c

20 October 2004

Support for cookies

This version of WAP has support for cookies (client
based), an application used by Web sites to store
site-specific information in the browser between
visits to the site. Cookies give the site owner a pos

­sibility to see when a person has visited their site.
They also save the user from having to enter the
same information (e.g. the password or user ID)
more than once. Cookies are often used by e-com

­merce sites (shopping carts and wish lists).

Sending bookmarks

WAP 2.0 enables the sending of bookmarks via
SMS.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

WAP 2.0 enables CSS. CSS allows developers to
specify the style of WAP page content such as font,
spacing, etc. The T290i/T290c supports CSS, and
with its colour display, user presentation is further
enhanced.

Provide settings

Using SMS messages, configuration settings can
be sent over the air, OTA, so that the user does not
need to configure the WAP access settings manu

­ally. WAP settings may also be customized by the
operator. For more information, see

“WAP operator

technical data” on page 55.

Adapt to phone type

The User Agent Profile function allows WAP con­tent to be automatically optimized for the T290i/
T290c capabilities, ensuring the intended user
experience.

Several bearer types

The T290i/T290c accesses WAP over a standard
GSM Data connection as well as over a GPRS con

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nection (network-dependent services.)

Bandwidth efficiency

Unlike traditional Internet services, WAP services
are relayed to wireless devices as binary encoded
data, maximizing bandwidth efficiency. A GPRS
connection further increases efficiency.

Easy to create WAP pages

Creating a WAP service is no harder than creating
an Internet/intranet service, since the markup lan

­guages (WML, WMLScript, XHTML Mobile Profile,
and XHTML Basic) are based on well-known Inter

­net languages such as HTML, XHTML, and JavaS­cript.

Using standard tools

Service creators can use standard tools such as
ASP (Active Server Page) or CGI (Common Gate

­way Interface) to generate content dynamically.
Services can be created once and then made
accessible on a broad range of wireless networks.

Existing services can be adapted to WAP. The nec­essary binary encoding is handled by a WAP Gate­way, allowing HTML-based services to be viewed
on the WAP browser of the T290i/T290c. An
XHTML page can be viewed in both the WAP
browser and in any standard Web browser.

Improve productivity

A business can use a WAP gateway to provide a
secure connection to its corporate network,
improving internal communication flow by making
information available to mobile as well as office
users.

The WAP profiles

A WAP profile holds network settings and user
identification, allowing the user to switch easily
between corporate services and WAP services on
the Internet, simply by switching WAP profile.

The T290i/T290c has dynamic WAP profile han­dling, which means that the user can add, edit and
delete WAP profiles. The T290i/T290c has a maxi

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mum of 5 WAP profiles.

During WAP browsing, the options button on the
T290i/T290c gives the user immediate access to a
dynamic option menu for WAP services, similar to a
right mouse click in PC programs.