With increased competition intoday's mobile communicationsindustry, many wireless operatorsface the dual challenge ofincreasing their subscribergrowth and maintaining orgrowing their Average RevenuePer User (ARPU). Operatorsrolling out 3G networks world-wide now have the capabilitiesneeded in their infrastructure tointroduce new, advanced dataservices to their customers.With the right marketing planand the right partners, operatorscan make the most of their newnetwork investment by deliveringcompelling features and applicationsto users and reaping the benefitsof increased ARPU.

Ericsson is one infrastructuresupplier offering a CDMA2000TM

solution that was developed

with the operator in mind. Thecompany's CDMA2000 networksupports an always-on environmentand high-speed packet dataservices for end users. MultimediaMessaging Service (MMS) takesadvantage of these two features,enhancing personal connectivityand productivity through moreimmediate exchange of richcontent, such as still images,animation, text, sound andvideo clips.

Industry research indicates thata majority of today’s mobilesubscribers are enthusiasticabout MMS-type services. Also,according to the analyst firmIDC, the market opportunity inWestern Europe alone, withMMS, will grow from arevenue level of 30.3 millionUSD in 2002 to over 3.2 billion

USD by 2005. For an operatorwho wants a share in thisgrowth trend – in any part of theworld – it's important to understandthe key factors that will drivethe uptake of MMS and propelit to worldwide success.

First and foremost is that contentmust be appealing and valuableto the end-user. Although operatorsand third-party applicationdevelopers will offer differenttypes of content, in each case itneeds to address the interests,needs and demands of the end-user. One way that Ericssonsupports this issue is throughEricsson Mobility World, an initiative to bring together contentand application developers withoperators – ensuring that applicationsare developed and tested on real3G networks and will address

Attracting new customers and making moneywith Multimedia Messaging Services

MMS to DriveNew Traffic

and Increase ARPUfor CDMA2000

Operators

end-user needs. Perhaps evenmore important is the end-user'sability to create his or her ownpersonalized content, such aspersonal pictures, video takenwith a built-in camera or contentdownloaded from the Web via amicro browser. Ericsson worksclosely with other vendors toensure that handsets, accessoriesand PDAs are compatible withEricsson’s products and servicesand will support customizedMMS content.

Another important successfactor is the standardization andinteroperability of MMS betweentechnologies, carriers and devices.Already MMS has beenstandardized by 3GPP and iscurrently in the process of beingstandardized by 3GPP2 forCDMA2000. Ericsson is bringingtheir long history of technologyleadership and standards devel-opment to the table in this arenaby working actively with thestandards body to promoteMMS interoperability and acommon MMS standard acrossthe different technologies.

A third critical success factor isthe ease of subscription and usefrom an end-user perspective. Agreat example of this issueworking at its best is the phenom-enal success of Short MessagingServices (SMS). One of theprimary reasons behind therapid uptake of SMS has beenthe combination of low priceper SMS and the fact that thereis no need for a specialsubscription and no complicatedset up required for the handsets.To facilitate this issue for MMS,Ericsson offers a fully-integrated,end-to-end MMS solution, fromcontent and application developmentto end-user devices.

A final success factor for MMSis pricing. MMS will be most

successful if operators are ableto introduce new services at amass-market pricing level.Different pricing models –either the quantity of messages,the message type or the messagesize – are being evaluated byoperators right now. A cost-effective infrastructure solutionthat includes a comprehensiveMMS solution and providesflexible billing, like Ericsson'sCDMA2000 solution, will be

key in helping operators tointroduce innovative pricingschemes.

Ericsson's MMS solution iscomprised of five differentcomponents: the MultimediaMessaging Center (MMC), theMultimedia Client Proxy (MMCP),the Multimedia Processor (MMP),the Multimedia Library (MML)and the Push Notification mech-anism on the Service Network.

In addition to these components,the Ericsson MMS solutionincludes close cooperation onthe content and applicationsside from the world's leadingdevelopers and content providersand close alignment with SonyEricsson and other vendors forhandsets, handset accessoriesand PDAs.

Ericsson has designed theirMMS products for CDMA2000

and GSM/GPRS/WCDMA todeliver to operators a high-performance, well-integrated,end-to-end MMS solution thatresults in a fast time-to-marketand a swift return on investments.Also, because Ericsson's MMSproducts are scalable to enablegradual or rapid expansion,operators are able to match thepace of their investments withthe pace of market demand andbusiness growth.

With a comprehensive solutionoffered across all major technolo-gies, more than 60 commercialMMS agreements and morethan 110 trials, Ericsson is theleader in MMS. Additionally,with the industry's-first demon-stration of cross-technologyMMS over CDMA2000 andGPRS at the 3G World Congressin Hong Kong in June 2002,Ericsson has once again proventheir competence in technologyleadership and a commitmentto CDMA.

Ericsson is leveraging its globalleadership to support operatorsaround the globe in their 3Glaunches and specifically theirMMS offering. Ericsson offersa common MMS solution forboth its CDMA2000 andGSM/GPRS/WCDMA productlines. Ericsson's MMS solutionis commercially available todayand has been proven worldwidewith more than 50 percent ofthe world's MMS subscribersrunning on Ericsson's MMSsolution. Ericsson offers acomprehensive, industry-leadingCDMA2000 solution, encom-passing infrastructure, services,applications and devices. Mostof all, the company is committedto partnering with operators todrive new traffic on their networks,to generate new income andto increase ARPU in today'scompetitive wireless environment.

Operators can make the most of their 3G network

investments by delivering compelling

– features and applications to their customers –

and reaping the benefits of increased ARPU

www.ericsson.com/cdmasystems