1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to telecommunications services. More particularly, the present invention relates to capabilities that enhance substantially the value and usefulness of various messaging paradigms including, inter alia, Multimedia Message Service (MMS), Electronic Mail (E-Mail), etc.
2. Background of the Invention
As the ‘wireless revolution’ continues to march forward the importance to a Mobile Subscriber (MS)—for example a user of a Wireless Device (WD) such as a mobile telephone, a BlackBerry, etc. that is serviced by a Wireless Carrier (WC)—of their WD grows substantially.
One consequence of such a growing importance is the resulting ubiquitous nature of WDs—i.e., MSs carry them at almost all times and use them for an ever-increasing range of activities.
Coincident with the expanding presence of WDs has been the explosive growth, year over year, in the number of (Short Message Service [SMS], MMS, etc.) messages that have been exchanged by and between WDs. That steady increase shows no sign of abating. For example:
1) As reported by the industry group CTIA (see ctia.org on the World Wide Web [WWW]) in the U.S. there were over 158 billion SMS messages sent during 2006 (representing a 95% increase over 2005) and there were over 2.7 billion MMS messages sent during 2006 (representing a 100% increase over 2005).
2) As reported by the research firm M:Metrics (see mmetrics.com on the WWW), between June 2007 and August 2007 36.0% of MSs aged 18-24 years, 27.2% of MSs aged 13-17 years, and 26.9% of MSs aged 25-34 sent MMS messages.
It is important to note that WDs are all different—e.g., the vendors or manufacturers of WDs (such as, for example, Motorola, Samsung, Nokia, LG, etc.) supply their WDs with different features/functions, different size screens, support for different color depths, varying degrees of support for audio and video information, etc. Among other things, different WDs provide different levels of native support (ranging from no support, to some support, to full and complete support) for different messaging paradigms such as, for example, SMS and MMS. As just one example, Apple's iPhone does not provide native support for MMS.
The specific WD differences that were described above are illustrative only and it will be readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the relevant art that numerous other differences are easily identified.
Occasions may arise where a MS would like to use their WD to exchange (for example, MMS) messages but circumstances may prohibit or limit same. For example:
1) Their WD may not provide native support for a particular messaging paradigm (such as, for example, MMS).
2) Their physical location may limit the level, type, etc. of WC-supplied service that their WD may enjoy and thus, possibly inter alia, constrain their ability to fully use their WD's native facilities (to, for example, exchange MMS messages).
On such occasions, and on other occasions that would be obvious to one or ordinary skill in the relevant art, it would be desirable to deliver (in the instant example MMS) messages to the WD through one or more alternate message delivery channels such as, possibly inter alia, E-Mail.
The present invention facilitates such alternate message delivery channels and addresses various of the (not insubstantial) infrastructure, etc. challenges that are associated with same.