Java Reference
In-Depth Information
In most cases, if you can make a call to an endpoint (a cell phone), then you can also send
an SMS message!
Unlike a cell phone call, however, a message is not lost if the receiving phone is not avail-
able when the message is sent. SMS messages are sent through a store-and-forward network,
and messages will queue up until the receiving device is available. This can be used to great
advantage for some applications. Through SMTP gateway services, it is even possible to send
SMS messages using e-mail and receive SMS messages as e-mail.
The possible applications are unlimited. Chat-type applications are the obvious for SMS,
but interactive gaming, event reminders, e-mail notification, mobile access to corporate
resources, and informational service are a sample of other opportunities.
WMA makes SMS available to MIDP developers. In other words, WMA provides a generalized
direct point-to-point communications mechanism for MIDP applications.
Note SMS can also be used in conjunction with the push registry to launch MIDlets on your cell phone.
See Chapter 10 for more details on push registry operations.
WMA and SMS
When a message is sent and received via WMA, there are two major benefits. First, the message
can now be significantly larger in size than a single SMS message. Second, the content is no
longer restricted to simple text messages. Under the hood, the WMA API will do the following:
Encode a binary message and transmit it through SMS.
Cut up a long message into segments, and send it via multiple (up to three) SMS messages.
Two current and finalized JSRs are relevant to WMA, and these are listed in Table 11-1.
Table 11-1. The WMA JSRs
JSR
Name
URL
http://jcp.org/jsr/detail/120.jsp
120
Wireless Messaging API
http://jcp.org/jsr/detail/205.jsp
205
Wireless Messaging API 2.0
JSR 120 actually describes WMA 1.1. Almost all devices that support WMA today have
WMA 1.1 implementations.
With JSR 205, support of multimedia messaging is added. This is the crux of WMA 2.0. It is
the ability to send large binary messages consisting of multiple parts. These messages are perfect
for carrying images, sound, video, or multimedia presentations.
 
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