Smart Communications has announced that it will permanently discontinue its Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) starting on September 28, 2018.

This means that Smart subscribers will no longer be able to send MMS messages that contain photos, videos and other media files via text message.

The announcement was sent in a text message to Smart prepaid and postpaid subscribers today. A Smart representative said that “MMS has been superseded by faster and more stable platforms allowing users to send texts, pictures, and videos. Resources from the MMS service will be reallocated to improve our services and be able to provide a better customer experience for our subscribers.”

MMS is a standard way to send text messages that include multimedia content such as photos and videos. MMS messages are delivered differently from SMS messages. The sending device first encodes the multimedia content in similar way to sending a MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) message. The message is then sent to the carrier’s server known as Multimedia Messaging Service Centre or MMSC.

If the recipient is on a different carrier, the MMSC acts as a relay and forwards the message to the recipient’s carrier’s MMSC using the Internet. Upon receiving the message, the carrier’s MMSC first determines if the recipient’s handset is “MMS-capable.”

If the handset is MMS-capable, the content is extracted and forwarded to a temporary storage server. A control message with the URL of the content is delivered to the recipient’s phone, which triggers the WAP browser to open and receive the content.

If the handset is not MMS-capable, the multimedia content is sent to a web-based service where the receiver can access the content using an Internet browser. The URL of the content is sent to the recipient’s phone in a normal text message.

With the widespread use and popularity of social networking sites and online chat applications, it’s little wonder that sending MMS messages is no longer in vogue. Sending photos and videos through Facebook and messaging apps is usually free, unlike MMS that normally cost P1.00 per message. MMS messages are also hindered by size limits, which is usually a maximum of 300KB per message.

What can you say about this decision by Smart to discontinue MMS? Are you still using MMS nowadays? Please share your thoughts below.