Wireless Village

Last updated

Wireless Village is a set of specifications for mobile instant messaging and presence services. It is intended to be a standard for cellphones and mobile devices to use these services across platforms.

Contents

Many wireless phones now include mobile instant messaging capabilities designed to hook into messaging services using IMPS on a carrier's network, formerly known as the Wireless Village protocol. Those phones implement it as an IM icon on the phone, which is typically renamed and customized by the cellphone carrier or removed completely if not supported at the network level. Most Nokia and Motorola phones have that feature, as do many Sony Ericsson phones.

Description

The white paper describes the service:

"Where possible, the protocol makes use of existing Internet and Web technologies. These technologies are implemented widely and are well tested, so their use within the protocol ensure easy implementation and interoperability testing. XML, the Extensible Markup Language, is rapidly emerging as the lingua franca for representing structured data over the Web. To the extent possible, the protocol uses XML to represent the protocol data being exchanged during an IMPS session. IMPS activities in the IETF IMPP have received widespread interest throughout the industry. Although it is still in development, to the extent possible, the Wireless Village initiative will support the CPIM draft and build upon it. Other useful standards in this space include the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) for registering the format of the IMPS protocol messages."

History

An announcement was made when this service was conceived by Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia. The specification is maintained by the Open Mobile Alliance, and is currently at version 1.3 of the protocol.

As of now, only a few public services exist using Wireless Village. Any unlocked phone can be configured to use these services, and therefore connect to other instant messaging services if implemented.

Operator implementations

Yamigo

Yamigo was a free communications service, based in Finland, that allowed instant messaging on mobile phones over wireless data services such as GPRS. The service was based on the protocol Wireless Village, developed by the Open Mobile Alliance, which is a joint venture between Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and other mobile device manufacturers[ which? ].

Certain models of mobile phones that include a chat client could access the Yamigo network. These included certain models of phones from Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Siemens. Once registered, Yamigo users could send messages to each other, and to users on Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger and ICQ. Yamigo supported importing contact lists from those services automatically.

Users connected to Yamigo via WAP and the internet. On the service's sign up page, users selected how frequently their phone polled the Yamigo network. Because it is a client-server protocol, receiving messages depended on how often the phone was set to poll the network. The service was abandoned in late 2005, and the last upgrade was version .19 in April 2005.

See also

Related Research Articles

Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limited to 2.5 milliwatts, giving it a very short range of up to 10 metres (33 ft). It employs UHF radio waves in the ISM bands, from 2.402 GHz to 2.48 GHz. It is mainly used as an alternative to wire connections, to exchange files between nearby portable devices and connect cell phones and music players with wireless headphones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SMS</span> Text messaging service component

Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text messages. An intermediary service can facilitate a text-to-voice conversion to be sent to landlines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Instant messaging</span> Form of communication over the internet

Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and triggers a transmission to the recipient(s), who are all connected on a common network. It differs from email in that conversations over instant messaging happen in real-time. Most modern IM applications use push technology and also add other features such as emojis, file transfer, chatbots, voice over IP, or video chat capabilities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wireless Markup Language</span> Markup language intended for devices that implement the Wireless Application Protocol specification

Wireless Markup Language (WML), based on XML, is an obsolete markup language intended for devices that implement the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) specification, such as mobile phones. It provides navigational support, data input, hyperlinks, text and image presentation, and forms, much like HTML. It preceded the use of other markup languages used with WAP, such as XHTML and HTML itself, which achieved dominance as processing power in mobile devices increased.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">XMPP</span> Communications protocol for message-oriented middleware

Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol is an open communication protocol designed for instant messaging (IM), presence information, and contact list maintenance. Based on XML, it enables the near-real-time exchange of structured data between two or more network entities. Designed to be extensible, the protocol offers a multitude of applications beyond traditional IM in the broader realm of message-oriented middleware, including signalling for VoIP, video, file transfer, gaming and other uses.

i-mode Japanese mobile internet service

NTT DoCoMo's i-mode is a mobile internet service popular in Japan. Unlike Wireless Application Protocols, i-mode encompasses a wider variety of internet standards, including web access, e-mail, and the packet-switched network that delivers the data. i-mode users also have access to other various services such as: sports results, weather forecasts, games, financial services, and ticket booking. Content is provided by specialised services, typically from the mobile carrier, which allows them to have tighter control over billing.

In computer and telecommunications networks, presence information is a status indicator that conveys ability and willingness of a potential communication partner—for example a user—to communicate. A user's client provides presence information via a network connection to a presence service, which is stored in what constitutes his personal availability record and can be made available for distribution to other users to convey their availability for communication. Presence information has wide application in many communication services and is one of the innovations driving the popularity of instant messaging or recent implementations of voice over IP clients.

OMA SpecWorks, previously the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), is a standards organization which develops open, international technical standards for the mobile phone industry. It is a nonprofit Non-governmental organization (NGO), not a formal government-sponsored standards organization as is the International Telecommunication Union (ITU): a forum for industry stakeholders to agree on common specifications for products and services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Talk</span> Instant messaging service

Google Talk was an instant messaging service that provided both text and voice communication. The instant messaging service was variously referred to colloquially as Gchat, Gtalk, or Gmessage among its users.

OMA DRM is a digital rights management (DRM) system invented by the Open Mobile Alliance, whose members represent mobile phone manufacturers, mobile system manufacturers, mobile phone network operators, and information technology companies. DRM provides a way for content creators to set enforced limits on the use and duplication of their content by customers. The system is implemented on many recent phones. To date, two versions of OMA DRM have been released: OMA DRM 1.0 and OMA DRM 2.0.

Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS) was a cross-industry collaboration between magic4, Ericsson, Motorola, Siemens and Alcatel among others, which provided an application-level extension to Short Message Service (SMS) for cellular phones available on GSM, TDMA and CDMA networks.

The OMA Instant Messaging and Presence Service (IMPS) is an Open Mobile Alliance enabler for Instant Messaging and Presence. The Wireless Village consortium developed the first cut of the specifications. After Wireless Village was merged with OMA, its specs became OMA IMPS 1.0 specifications. IMPS is widely deployed but not necessarily marketed. Interworking between several operators IMPS platforms is being performed under a GSMA initiative that encourages interworking and deployment of Instant Messaging.

Push email is an email system that provides an always-on capability, in which when new email arrives at the mail delivery agent (MDA), it is immediately, actively transferred (pushed) by the MDA to the mail user agent (MUA), also called the email client, so that the end-user can see incoming email immediately. This is in contrast with systems that check for new incoming mail every so often, on a schedule. Email clients include smartphones and, less strictly, IMAP personal computer mail applications.

Wi-Fi calling refers to mobile phone voice calls and data that are made over IP networks using Wi-Fi, instead of the cell towers provided by cellular networks. Using this feature, compatible handsets are able to route regular cellular calls through a wireless LAN (Wi-Fi) network with broadband Internet, while seamlessly change connections between the two where necessary. This feature makes use of the Generic Access Network (GAN) protocol, also known as Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA).

WISPr or Wireless Internet Service Provider roaming is a draft protocol submitted to the Wi-Fi Alliance that allows users to roam between wireless internet service providers in a fashion similar to that which allows cellphone users to roam between carriers. A RADIUS server is used to authenticate the subscriber's credentials.

Motorola Rizr is a series of slide mobile phones from Motorola, and is one of the series in the 4LTR line. The first model was released in late 2006. It is a sliding phone, where the numeric keys are hidden beneath the screen of the phone when closed.

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is a technical standard for accessing information over a mobile wireless network. A WAP browser is a web browser for mobile devices such as mobile phones that use the protocol. Introduced in 1999, WAP achieved some popularity in the early 2000s, but by the 2010s it had been largely superseded by more modern standards. Almost all modern handset internet browsers now fully support HTML, so they do not need to use WAP markup for web page compatibility, and therefore, most are no longer able to render and display pages written in WML, WAP's markup language.

Chikka, short for Chikka Text Messenger, was an Internet-based instant messaging application that supported free SMS or text messaging between online users and offline mobile subscribers. Chikka was released by Chikka Philippines, Inc. in the early 2000 and eventually established its connection with the country's network operators Smart Communications (2001), Globe Telecom (2002) and Sun Cellular (2004). With up to billions of messages being exchanged between online and mobile communities worldwide through Chikka, it is probably the world's first commercially successful integration of web and mobile utilities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windows Live Messenger</span> Deprecated instant messaging client

MSN Messenger, later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the now-discontinued Microsoft Messenger service and, in later versions, was compatible with Yahoo! Messenger and Facebook Messenger. The service was discontinued in 2013, replaced by Skype.

References